F2002: The Fellowship Hits London
by SoulshadowDiamond
Summary: After being granted immortal life, the Fellowship find themselves coinhabiting a rather too cramped house in 21st century England. So they go on holiday to London...and chaos ensues, not surprisingly...
1. Prologue

This little piece of craziness was inspired by the wonderful "Bagenders" - if you haven't read it, DO. It's fantastic. Anyway, this is my version, as it were. And if you have read Bagenders, please be aware that this isn't the continuation of that - it's my own work. I don't reckon I could follow Bagenders up well enough -.-* but I can try my own version... : )  
  
Everything LOTR-related, except the fangirls, belongs to wonderful Mr Tolkien. (The fangirls belong to themselves, luckily). I don't own anything else (Legolas, Aragorn, Haldir and Elrond all part-own me though). Red Dwarf is a British TV series and one of the funniest things I've ever come across. Anadins are the most commonly used headache tablets in the UK. If you don't know what a Range Rover is, you've been living under a rock; I'll let you off for not knowing what a Ranger Rover is, though - it's Aragorn's Range Rover with an extra "R" painted on the back...That is mine, kinda. Aragorn and I borrowed it off my uncle...he better not prang it ; )  
  
Concept by someone else. None of this belongs to me but Legolas, Elrond and Aragorn (and Haldir, Elladan and Elrohir, and any other eligible male elves around) are welcome to come kip in my place should they like...  
  
Any other brand names you come across do - guess what?! - NOT BELONG TO ME!! And no copyright infringement was intended or committed (I hope anyways. If so, sincere apologies to relevant companies and/or representatives thereof!). This is a non-profit fic!  
  
Oh, and the tourist attractions in London belong to some governmenty type thing, probably the Tourism Council for London. McDonald's belongs to Mr McDonald, though Merry and Pippin would rather it belonged to them!!  
  
F2002: The Fellowship Hits London (poor old London.)  
  
*...* denotes thoughts. Capitals, pretty obviously, denote emphasis ^_^  
  
  
  
Prologue: Thank You and Bug Off  
  
"You have done us all a great good," the Lady Galadriel said kindly to the eight upturned faces. Some hopeful, some a little upset, some downright sad.  
  
The Fellowship bowed low. Arwen simpered somewhere in the background.  
  
"Therefore, I have, at great personal risk, taken it upon myself to provide your reward."  
  
"Saving one so beauteous as yourself is reward enough, m'lady," Gimli offered, earning himself a sharp and swift kick in the ankle from a nearby soft Elven hunting-boot which was, unfortunately, around a very hard and firm Elven foot at the time. Gimli frowned, trying hard not to cry out.  
  
"Perhaps," Galadriel whispered. "But," she continued in her normal voice, "I have arranged for something more. My lord Elrond?"  
  
The dark-haired Elf-lord of Imladris stepped forward.  
  
"And Mithrandir." Gandalf, recognising his Elven name, joined the Elf nobles before the Fellowship.  
  
"This will be the last act of the Great Rings before their power diminishes and fails under the destruction of the One," Galadriel explained. "You know what you must do," she added to her son-in-law and Gandalf.  
  
The three majestic figures briefly touched their Rings together. There was a flash of blinding white light, and the seven Fellowshippers left standing shielded their eyes. When they dared open them again, something felt...different.  
  
"Why do I have a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach?" Aragorn wanted to know.  
  
"Why do I feel young again?" Gimli asked.  
  
Legolas was going to ask why he seemed to have developed a worrying capacity to panic, but thought better of it.  
  
Galadriel was looking sadly at her hand. There was no longer a golden band around one finger. Elrond noted this with a raised eyebrow; Gandalf's expression didn't change. Finally, the Lady spoke. "You have all been granted the greatest gift I could offer..."  
  
Elrond nodded wisely. Arwen beamed.  
  
"Immortality."  
  
"WHAT?!?" said the Fellowship, sans Gandalf, in one voice. "Riiiight..." Legolas the already immortal elf added uneasily.  
  
"It is true that we Elves envy the Men for their lucky escape of Death," Galadriel said, "but I know also that you Men - and Dwarves and Hobbits, Gimli and Frodo, Meriadoc, Peregrin, Sam - envy we Elves for our incapability of dying by natural means. Therefore, after much consideration and many meetings with others, I decided to grant you what it is you wish most. Immortal life."  
  
"Yay!" Aragorn said. Arwen ran over and hugged him.  
  
"Thank you, m'lady," Gimli said. The others added a motley chorus of thanks, but for Legolas, who hung back nervously. THIS lot and immortal life? It didn't bear thinking about.  
  
Elrond beamed at him. "Welcome, Legolas, to the first day of the rest of your life."  
  
And if he hadn't been a respectably three-thousand year old Prince, of excellent breeding and even better manners, Legolas would have sworn there was a cold glint in the Elf-lord's eye when he spoke...  
  
No, he decided quickly. Not Elrond, of all people...  
  
Naaaah. 


	2. Setting Off

Disclaimer: It's still not mine, nor will it ever be. Oh well.  
  
1. Setting Off: It's a Bloody Business and No Mistake Innumerable millenia later, in a four-bedroom semi in Birmingham, Disarray and Pandemonium had long since taken a firm grip on the Fellowship and their affairs, and they didn't intend on letting go just yet.  
  
Everything had been peaceful for centuries, a highly unusual occurrence (especially since the ghost of Boromir had turned up in the sixth century and never disappeared back into the ether, at least not for long, to Frodo's great distress), but someone had recently had the bright idea of Going On Holiday. Legolas - the only sane one in the house, he often thought, though everyone else privately disagreed - had very quickly vetoed the idea of going to Ibiza, as Merry and Pippin wanted, and after a lot of fighting involving Aragorn and Gandalf's old broadswords being brought down from the attic, they had finally settled on London.  
  
It was a sunny Wednesday morning in August, the birds were singing, the cabbages were doing well, and at Number 32 Cherry Blossom Avenue (the house called "Lórien", which everyone thought was Greek), chaos reigned...  
  
**  
  
"Eight thirty-TWO and counting!" Legolas, all but hysterical, bellowed up the stairs. "And the train LEAVES at NINE-ELEVEN!"  
  
"Calm doon!" Pippin bellowed back, rolling over in his bunk. "We'll be there, alreet? Shuttup already!"  
  
"You're probably not even packed yet," Legolas noted, accurately.  
  
"WHERETHEHELLAREMYBOXERS?!?" A tall, dark, and usually fairly handsome ranger went pelting past in a towelling robe and white football socks. Legolas shot out an arm and caught Aragorn by the back of the neck of the robe, which made him slip on the polished wood hall flooring and slither around for several seconds before finally regaining his balance. Aragorn had never quite been the same since Arwen 'moved on' in the fifteenth century AD. Certainly he'd never learnt basic housekeeping, in any case. "WHATDIDYOUDOTHATFOR?!"  
  
*Deep breaths,* Legolas thought desperately, *deep breaths, project an aura of outer Elvishness and complete and unflappable serenity...* "One, calm down. Two, stop yelling. Three, on the washline in the kitchen."  
  
"There's a washline in the kitchen!?"  
  
"Frodo deals with it."  
  
"Oh. Right." Aragorn thought about this for a moment, then turned his face heavenwards and bellowed, "FRODOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"  
  
Only a split-second later, the Hobbit poked his head around the kitchen door, blinking. "No need to shout, you know, I'm right here."  
  
"Hmph."  
  
"Frodo," Legolas said sweetly, thinking *CalmdowncalmdownalreadyLegolas!*, "would you mind popping into the kitchen and getting Aragorn some boxers please?"  
  
Frodo stared at the elf like he was completely crackers. "Me? ARAGORN's boxers? You have GOT to be kidding me. Please say you're kidding me?"  
  
"Unfortunately, I'm not."  
  
"No, no, no, no, no no no no no nononononononoNO. Okay?"  
  
Begging is so undignified at the best of times, and for Elves it's even worse. But when needs must... "Please?" Legolas said, blinking innocently.  
  
"NO!"  
  
"Go on, none of us can get in the kitchen."  
  
"NO!"  
  
"Please...?"  
  
"NO!"  
  
Legolas frowned for a moment, thinking. "Hang on..."  
  
"What? No, by the way."  
  
"Why don't you like touching them now?"  
  
"Why should I?!"  
  
"Well, since you wash things most in this house, next to me, and I refuse point-blanc to do anyone's underwear except mine, so it must have been you, you must have touched them when they were...worse."  
  
Frodo considered this. "M'still not going to get them."  
  
"OHFORCRYINGOUTLOUD!" Aragorn said suddenly, and dived past Frodo into the (minute) kitchen. A moment later, a shriek followed. "EEEYOOOOOOOOOOOOWW!"  
  
Legolas shook his head. Anyone with half a gramme of brain cell would remember that what with Sam's enormous kitchen table, and Frodo's various shiny things like the industrial blender, the ice-cream maker and the fridge-freezer, AND the fitted work-units, there was literally NO room for a fully-grown over-testosteroned man- (or Elf-) sized person to get in there, fight his way to the clothes horse, and free a pair of boxers. And if he was to try it, he might end up in serious Pain. Capitalised.  
  
"OwowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowOOOOWWWW!!"  
  
"Stop whining and get out here!!" Legolas shrieked into the kitchen, forgetting the aura of outer Elvishness and complete and unflappable serenity for a moment, or perhaps a fortnight.  
  
"Owowowowowowowowowowow!" Aragorn, red-faced and pained-looking, sheepishly looked round the kitchen door. "Have you Hobbits any idea of what height you have that kitchen table at?!"  
  
"It does me well enough," Frodo said flippantly, which earned him worried looks from Aragorn and the now-bordering-on-sheer-panic Legolas.  
  
Aragorn was first to recover. "Well it's not exactly...suitable...for anyone else!"  
  
"But nobody else is ever IN my kitchen, are they?"  
  
"They are when bloody Hobbits refuse to get them their underwear!"  
  
"That's not my fault! They're your boxers, you wash 'em!"  
  
"Why should I?! You're the well-trained house-Hobbit!"  
  
Legolas meeped, panicked briefly, gave up, sighed and leaned on the bannister. This was going to go on for a while, he could tell.  
  
"Me? Well-trained house Hobbit?! And what do you call yourself then?!"  
  
"I am a tall, dark and handsome Ranger!"  
  
"Riiight!! WhatEVER!"  
  
"You're a fine one to talk!"  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?!"  
  
It was at that moment that they were interrupted in their arguing by two things: first a thump from upstairs - from Merry and Pippin's room, Legolas guessed accurately - and a long, low moaning from...inside the fridge!?  
  
Ignoring the thump - it was a pretty usual occurrence for there to be thumps from, and on, and in the immediate vicinity of Merry and Pippin (with any luck they'd been dragging their suitcase off the top of the wardrobe) - Aragorn, Frodo and Legolas all turned to the fridge (or at least, the general direction of the fridge. Frodo dodged into the kitchen for a closer look, and Aragorn and Legolas stared at the wall, at around about where the fridge was.  
  
Legolas' brow creased in a worried frown. "Was that...?"  
  
"It bloody well better not've been," Aragorn cut him off, hopping around on one leg, trying to put his boxers on and maintain some kind of dignity at the same time: a near impossible task.  
  
Of course, it had to be right at that most inopportune moment that Merry and Pippin finally decided to surface, and appeared, side by side, at the top of the stairs, complete with the most hastily-packed suitcase in the entire world's complete and unabridged history, most of which the Fellowship had been there for, to be greeted by the sight of Aragorn apparently doing some kind of Celtic sword-dance (sans swords but with boxers); Legolas looking skeptical, bored and panicked all at once (a very interesting expression, even more so on an Elven face); and Frodo darting worriedly in and out of the kitchen.  
  
"What the hell...?" Merry asked, blinking.  
  
"Ah donno, cousin o'mine," Pippin replied thoughtfully. "Looks mighty interestin', though."  
  
"Yeah," Merry said. "Really, really interesting."  
  
Aragorn, noticing the two observers for the first time, meeped in a more- than-a-bit-girlish fashion, and hop-dived into the living room, landing smack-bang on top of Gandalf, who was coming out to see what all the fuss was about.  
  
"Sorry!" squeaked Aragorn, darted to the window, drew the curtains, slammed shut the door, and proceeded to finally get his boxers on in relative peace.  
  
Gandalf, who had been up and ready for close to three hours now, was getting heartily pissed off by all this commotion outside. "What IS going on here?" he said sternly, standing, legs planted firmly and hands on hips, in the middle of the hall, completely blocking the way for anyone and everyone else.  
  
"He's at it again," Legolas told him wearily.  
  
"ARGH!" said Frodo, in a jolt of sudden realisation, and he zipped under the kitchen table slightly faster than your avarage streak of greased lightning.  
  
"Oh Eru," Legolas said despairingly. "I do not NEED this today of all days!"  
  
"OOH! I get it!" Merry shrieked suddenly. "S'Boromir, innit?!"  
  
"YES," Legolas told him in a fierce whisper. "Haunting the fridge, of all things."  
  
"Aggghhhhh..." said a little voice from under the table. "Arrrrrrrgk..."  
  
"All right," Gandalf said firmly, trying hard to stride purposefully into the kitchen, but having to stop in the doorway. "I'll deal with this." He took a deep breath and said calmly, "Boromir son of Denethor ex-Steward of Gondor, GET THE HELL OUT HERE NOW!!"  
  
Moments later, a somewhat sheepish but still rather defiant-looking (and very definitely transparent) Boromir floated through the fridge door, slightly frosted. "What? I was only scaring the wits out of the salami--"  
  
"There's a salami in my fridge?!" said an enraged voice from under the table. "WHO put THAT there then?!?"  
  
Merry and Pippin glanced guiltily at one another and snickered. It was a garlic salami, too.  
  
Boromir frowned at the table. "Frodo?"  
  
"Meep?"  
  
"Why are you under the table?"  
  
"S'obvious!"  
  
"No it's not..."  
  
"'Tis!"  
  
"Isn't!"  
  
"Is too!"  
  
"I'm telling you, Baggins, it's not!"  
  
Legolas could easily see this continuing for hours, so he decided to intervene. "He's terrified of you, ye silly clod!"  
  
"Me?!"  
  
"Yes, you!"  
  
"ME a silly clod? You, like, total blonde!" Boromir said, putting on an over-the-top California-valley-girl accent.  
  
"Excuse ME--" Legolas began, before realising he was getting into exactly the same argument as he had been trying to cut short between the ghost and the Hobbit. "Never mind," he added hastily, muttering, "Doesn't mean you're any less of a silly clod," so quietly that nobody but Gandalf heard.  
  
Thankfully, perhaps, the wizard decided not to pass comment, and Legolas, after pausing a moment, continued thus: "The time--" he checked the hall clock "--is now eight-forty and nine seconds. And the train leaves at ELEVEN MINUTES past NINE o'clock, and Boromir's frightening Frodo and Aragorn's in a state of undress and Merry and Pippin are being generally Merry and Pippinish and WHERE THE HELL IS THAT SAMWISE GAMGEE?!?!?!?"  
  
"Woah," Merry said. "Sheesh," he added. "He needs to calm down a little," he finished up.  
  
"Chill pill time," Pippin said, nodding. "Wha's 'gen'rally Merry an' Pippinish', anyhoo?"  
  
"Search me," Merry replied.  
  
At that moment, Aragorn came hurtling out of the living room (with the curséd boxers on; insert thanks to whatever deity or higher power you like to believe in: here) and, while rocketing up the stairs at phenomenal velocity, shouted back, "I'll thank you to get your facts right, Legolas Greenleaf; it was SEMI-undress!"  
  
The back door opened and a muddy Sam wandered in, looking wide-eyed, shocked, and, as usual, innocent. "Did someone call? I was out tendin' to me potatoes, but I'm all ready to go, Mr Legolas, honest!"  
  
"Eep!" Legolas replied, by now close to apopleptic. "Goandgetcleanedup! It's eightfortytwonow!"  
  
"Yessir!" said Sam. "Sorrysir!" And he dived off up the stairs after Aragorn.  
  
**  
  
Eight fifty-three and counting...  
  
"Is this all right, sir?" Sam asked Legolas as he hurtled down the stairs.  
  
"Fine," Legolas asked distractedly from his spot on the kitchen floor. Being the smallest (or at least most bendy) sane and relatively normal house-member aside from Sam, he had been voted in to go and talk Frodo out from under the table. Returning to this task, he added, "Please, Frodo. Come on. You do want to go to London, don't you?"  
  
"NotwithHIM!"  
  
"But the Ri--er--the Thing's gone now, Frodo. And he's dead, in any case. He can't hurt you."  
  
"Nor would I want to," Boromir put in helpfully, from where he was sitting on thin air six feet up. Which completely destroyed all Legolas' hard work of the last eleven minutes.  
  
"ARGH!" said Frodo, proving the above-mentioned point.  
  
"Dammit," commented Legolas. "Frodoooooo..."  
  
"Meep?"  
  
"You're going to come out now..."  
  
"Nomeep!"  
  
"Because if you don't..."  
  
"Whatmeep?"  
  
"I'm going to go up to the attic and get down my bow and quiver WHICH ARE STILL IN PERFECT WORKING ORDER BECAUSE I CARE FOR MY POSSESSIONS..."  
  
"Thenmeep?"  
  
"I'm going to wriggle under there and shoot you up the bum until you MOVE IT!"  
  
"Movingmeep!" said Frodo, and scrabbled to his feet. Hell hath no fury like a stressed Elf, especially one threatening to go and get his perfectly working bow.  
  
"Right," said Legolas firmly. "Everyone into the car, and let's get to the station. Even though we're almost certainly going to miss the train now. It's only eight fifty-five, after all, and we only have sixteen minutes to get there..."  
  
**  
  
"Has everyone got everything they need?"  
  
"Yessss..."  
  
"Suitcases?"  
  
"Yeeesss..."  
  
"I put them ALL in the boot mySELF," Aragorn said peevishly. "Including a very large bright yellow one with 'American Tourister Reinforced Aluminum Exterior For Extra Protection of Contents, And Internal Clothes-Press' written on a label hanging off it," he added, to the accompaniment of sniggers from Merry and Pippin.  
  
Legolas blushed but rallied magnificently: "Bags?"  
  
"Yeeeesss."  
  
"I put them in too," Aragorn said, well into the swing of revenge, "including the sweet little green hand-luggage style one containing, I do believe, a hairdryer, electric straighteners, electric curlers, an excess of twenty-nine hairclips, bobbles, and scrunchies, moisturiser, conditioner, shampoo, and numerous other little bottles of crèmes and oils and the like, and quite a lot of blonde hair-dye."  
  
Merry and Pippin bent over in their seats, laughing fit to burst.  
  
Legolas glowered at the smirking Ranger. Okay, so they both knew he'd been lying about the hair dye (there had been no hairdye involved in Legolas's life, EVER), but the rest of it was true, and besides, the other occupants of the Ranger Rover didn't KNOW Aragorn had been duplicitous on the last count... "Change of clothing IN the suitcases?" Legolas continued quickly.  
  
"Ye-essss..." Aragorn couldn't think of a witty repartee to that one.  
  
"Socks, toothpaste, axes, boxers Aragorn, and everything else?"  
  
"YES LEGOLAS! GET ON WITH IT!" Aragorn bellowed, his limited patience finally snapping. Revenge was sweet, but only when someone else was on the receiving end of it. Elves were too damn good at hitting you right where it hurt, i.e., in Aragorn's case, his boxers. The ones he wasn't wearing at the time, that is.  
  
"Righto," the Elf chirruped. "Roll call!"  
  
"Do we have to, 'Mom'?" Aragorn asked, sighing, as he strapped himself in at the driver's seat.  
  
"Yes," 'mommy' Legolas said, adding in a whisper, "unfortunately. I'll do the shortened version, though. Hobbits?"  
  
"Yeah!"  
  
"Aye!"  
  
"Meep!"  
  
"Yessir, Mr Legolas sir!"  
  
"Can you make it any shorter, please, Legolas?" Aragorn asked irritably, revving the engine. They weren't even out of the drive yet, *and WHO was it who was so eager to get going and is NOW holding us back?* the ranger thought miserably, still smarting after Legolas's boxers crack.  
  
"All right," Legolas said. "Really short version of roll call coming up. Ready?"  
  
"Ready," replied a motley and tired-sounding chorus.  
  
"Right," Legolas said. "Everyone?"  
  
The responses came thick and fast, but by dint of a quick head count (by far the best roll call there can be), Legolas ascertained that everyone was present. Gandalf was looking increasingly murderous, Boromir was looking increasingly dead, the Hobbits were looking increasingly and dangerously close to complete mental breakdowns, with varying degrees of damage imminent... Quickly, Legolas strapped in in the front passenger seat and nodded to Aragorn, arguments and revenge forgotten in the face of the Hobbits.  
  
The moment the Ranger Rover started to roll, Merry and Pippin let out a cheer; Gimli began wishing he'd brought his Best Axe along and not just his little chopper; Sam started pining for his cabbages; Frodo panicked about being in a confined space with two mad Hobbits, a manic elf, a stressed Ranger, and an altogether Far Too Calm wizard but most of all Boromir; Gandalf sighed and magicked some Anadins out of the air; and Boromir raised his eyebrows and concentrated on not getting left behind, floating in mid- air, when Aragorn hit the main road and stepped on the gas.  
  
**  
  
"WHSmith! Can I go in WHSmith, Legolas? Can I? Can I? Please?" Frodo was practically begging.  
  
"Hmmm, iron...steel...nice roof support system..." Gimli, too, was in his element.  
  
"Petunias!" said Sam, heading for a large planter full of pretty blooms. "Wonder how they keep them so vibrant in this dusty atmosphere?"  
  
Merry and Pippin, giggling, set off following a passing teenager in a short skirt and knee-high boots. Legolas didn't bother trying to call them back. After all--  
  
"Can I go in WHSmith?!"  
  
"Anadin, Legolas?" Gandalf said kindly, proffering the little yellow packet.  
  
Legolas considered, just for a moment, taking the lot and overdosing, but knowing his luck he'd end up in the same situation as Boromir, and still not shot of this little lot of imbeciles. "Thanks," he said gratefully, popping one tablet from its silver-foil holder. Elves really shouldn't take analgesics (or halucinogens or preventatives or modern alcohol, as he had learnt to his cost some decades ago) but surely just one, just this once, wouldn't do any harm. It certainly couldn't make his headache any worse. And besides--  
  
"PLASTIC!" Sam wailed, almost hysterical. "Some vibrant petunias THEY turned out to be!"  
  
"CAN I GO IN WHSMITHS PLEASE?!?"  
  
"Hey baby, ken ah have yer number? Ye know yeh want tae!"  
  
"Smeg off, shortie!" the teenager, obviously a Red Dwarf fan, told Pippin.  
  
"You living lot are a bunch of complete idiots," Boromir noted, pretty accurately it must be said.  
  
"PLEEEEEEEEEEEASSSSSSEEEEE!!"  
  
"PLASTIC?!?!"  
  
"Ah, go oern, honeh!"  
  
"Smeg OFF, I said!"  
  
"Oh, I see, so there's iron bolts in...there...and there...and steel roof supports running along from...there, to...here and..."  
  
"You don't crunch tablets, Legolas, you swallow. Sort of - gulp, yes?"  
  
"Urgh!" Legolas, one failed attempt at Anadin-ingestion behind him, bent over, coughing violently and almost choking. Anyways--  
  
"I am in the long-stay carpark, right?" Aragorn fretted for the hundredth time. "Not the shortstay? Argh, shit! Did I put the steering lock on?!"  
  
Legolas stopped hacking and wheezing for long enough to answer, "Yes, you did," before resuming the dying.  
  
"CAN I GOT TO WHSMITHS PLEASE?!?!?!?!?"  
  
Cough, cough, choke, die, "YES! WHATEVER!" In any case...  
  
"I won't be long!" sang Frodo, and darted off.  
  
...it didn't really matter...  
  
"Are you sure?" Aragorn asked worriedly.  
  
...because just as the Ranger Rover had pulled into the LONG stay car- park...  
  
"Yes," wheezed Legolas, red in the face and hair matted from all the bending over.  
  
...the nine-eleven to Kings' Cross had pulled out of the station...  
  
"Go orn, pleahs, it's jest a flippin' telephone nummer!"  
  
...and the next one to London was the two forty-five.  
  
"Life sucks," Legolas noted sadly, still wheezing a little. Boromir nodded kindly, if a little transparently. 


	3. Tourism Part One Younger And Fouler Thin...

Disclaimer: It's not mine, still not mine, will not ever be mine, but Legolas, Haldir, Faramir, Aragorn, Éomer, Elladan-and-Elrohir, Elrond, and Q are all welcome to call round my place any time they like (and frequently do, but shh! PJ mustn't know Haldy's still alive in the real world!)  
  
Thanks a million to all my reviewers, I love you all!!  
  
Some language in this chapter (mostly English, har har ^_~) but nothing too nasty. Enjoy...  
  
  
  
Chapter 2. There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world: Fangirls!  
  
"New York, New York!" sang Frodo. Three or four hours on a train with the Fellowship (oddly enough, half an hour into the trip, everyone else had mysteriously vacated their carriage) had improved his mood a little, especially since in WHSmith, he had bought 'Jamie's Kitchen', and had been reading up on tasty new recipes all the way to London.  
  
"Wrong city," Legolas pointed out, wearily. The train journey had not done him the same good as it had done for Frodo.  
  
"So?" Frodo asked.  
  
"Don't cry for me, Argentiiina," Boromir sang in an impressive baritone. Aragorn and Gimli joined in on the bass line; Sam did the tenor.  
  
"Shut UP!" Legolas told them, leading the way off Platform 10b of Kings' Cross Station, London. "If we go this way," he led the way outside and through a long, low building containing Platforms 1 through 4a; "and out here," slithering past another compulsory train-station WHSmiths in the hope Frodo wouldn't spot it, "and through these pretty glass doors here, we should arrive out on...some major street-type thing..."  
  
"The truth is I never left yooooooooooou," the Argentina singing quartet continued, having been singing while they were walking. "All through my wild days, my mad existaaaance..."  
  
They were cut off by a shriek. Or, more precisely, several hundred shrieks, and one distinctly Elvish one: "AAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!"  
  
"Legolas?" Aragorn asked, quitting the bass. "Are you okay?"  
  
"Do I look it?" said a little voice from somewhere under about fifty rabid fangirls. "Do I bloody well look it?!"  
  
"No-o-o-oo," Aragorn said slowly, before he too was massacred by shrieking fans. "Ow! Ooh! Ohnoyoudon't! Getthehelloff! OWWW! ARGH! EEEEEEEKKK!!"  
  
Boromir turned sadly to Sam. "You think they'll notice me? Noooo. One little misdemeanour at Amon Hen and they all think I'm some huuuge baddie or something..."  
  
"Huh? How do they know aboot Amon Hen?" Pippin wanted to know.  
  
Boromir turned a ghostly shade of pink. "Oh, I, er, might have mentioned it to some people..."  
  
"Uhhuh?"  
  
"And the one person I mentioned it to who didn't think he was going mad, well, he might have written it down..."  
  
"Ayyeee..."  
  
"And someone might have turned the trilogy he wrote into a movie..."  
  
"Ah." Pippin blinked. "Tha' would explain why they're yellin' 'Orlando' a' Legolas, would it?"  
  
"Yes, and calling poor Aragorn 'Viggo'. That's who played them, see."  
  
"Ken we gan an' see tha movie?"  
  
"Maybe. Ask Legolas, if he's ever the same again."  
  
At that moment, Boromir was distracted by yet another yell, this one from Frodo: "SAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I don't HAVE It any more! STOP it! What evil is taking you, you rabid humans? Argh! I'm only little you know!!"  
  
Legolas, somewhere under a seething mass of screaming rabid fans, was rapidly coming to the conclusion that holidays were NOT a good idea. In fact, he was actually transcending the extreme pain his physical body was experiencing, and perhaps even having a Spiritual Experience, when - "GETTHEHELLOFFTHERE!!" - an over-keen fangirl got somewhere nobody had been in, well...somewhere nobody had been, ever, actually.  
  
Aragorn was having marginally more success, having fought them all back with his best 'I am the king, you will listen to me' commands. "Back!" he yelled once more, for good effect. What possessed you to this mad behaviour?"  
  
"OOOH Viggo!" yelled a couple of the girls, and one of them fainted.  
  
"Someone see to her," Aragorn said. "Who's Viggo, anyway?"  
  
"Ask Boromir," Pippin offered cheekily. He only had a small fan following, but that suited him, as it meant he could get his arms around all of them. Being in the midst of a small and elite group of simpering teenagers was Pippin's idea of heaven itself.  
  
"I will," Aragorn said grimly. "Later."  
  
"OOOH Sean Bean!" yelled a fangirl, earning herself a dirty look from about a hundred others. "What'd I say?"  
  
Thankfully, the Viggoites killing the poor 'misguided' Seanite gave Aragorn a chance to nip away to try and save Legolas and Frodo. He could hear muffled yells from what appeared to be a massive female rugby scrum, radiating several metres each way from its centre, which, it seemed, was an enraged Legolas.  
  
"No for the millionth time I do NOT use Herbal Essences, and why do you care anyway? Whaddyamean did I get to keep the wig?!?! It's MY hair! And yes I really CAN use a bow, and at the moment I really wish I WAS using a bow, it might get some of you lot off me. Ouch!"  
  
"Orlaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaando! CanIhaveyourautograph?!?"  
  
"WHY ME ERU?!?!? Who in all the world is Orlando?!"  
  
"Oooooh," said one fangirl to another, "he's gone all Legolas on us. You know Eru's the head god guy of the Elves?"  
  
"Actually of all Middle-earth; the Elves call Him Ilúvatar," Legolas said brightly. Middle-earthian theology was something he enjoyed.  
  
"Oooooh! Orrliiiiiiiee!" shrieked the intelligent fangirl; "Have you read the books?"  
  
"Books?"  
  
"Guess not," said the world's most intelligent fangirl, and went back to being rabid and screaming.  
  
Meanwhile the Elijahites were arguing.  
  
"He's...frightened!!"  
  
"Awwww!"  
  
"'Liiiiiiiiij!"  
  
"So cute!"  
  
"No he's not frightened," said one brave Elijahite, "he's just pulling a Frodo on us. S'cute."  
  
"I'm not pulling an anything!" Frodo said desperately. "Lemme go!"  
  
Gandalf, whose only fan was a middle-aged woman with auburn hair who also liked Harry Potter - an instant turnoff for the wizard, who kept pretty up- to-date with recent literary developments, (he had simply had the immense discretion and enough good sense not to mention 'The Lord of the Rings' to the others, and it had thankfully escaped their notice, too) - had had the presence of mind to whistle a taxi. Gratefully, the massacred Fellowshippers wriggled free of their fangirls (some, like Pippin, more reluctantly than others) and piled in. Gandalf quickly employed a little Maiar magic to (a) get his staff into the vehicle, and (b) get the ten cases into the boot (two of the extra three were Legolas's and one was Frodo's; Boromir didn't need anything).  
  
"Where to, guv?" the driver asked cheerfully.  
  
"Anywhere well away from here!" Aragorn and Legolas said quickly.  
  
"Rightio, guv," said the driver, and proceeded to go ninety miles around London in order to get back to the King's Cross Hotel, Euston Road, where Gandalf had booked four twin rooms for fourteen nights. The King's Cross Hotel was on the same street as the station, but none of the Fellowship felt safe trying to run up the road, so an hour (and a LOT of holiday money) later, they piled out of the taxi, paid the driver, and dashed into the lobby.  
  
"Hello, sir, how may I help you?" asked the lively blonde behind the front desk.  
  
"Four twin rooms for Grey, please," Gandalf said wearily (an hour in a taxi with Merry and Pippin hadn't done anyone any good). "For fourteen nights."  
  
The blonde, whose nametag read Jayne, tapped at a computer console behind her desk for a moment. "Ah, yes. Mr Grey and...seven companions. You're in rooms 23 to 26, on the first floor, if that's all right."  
  
"That's fine," Gandalf said.  
  
"I hope the children will be accompanied at all times while in the hotel?" Jayne said, raising a perfectly-shaped eyebrow.  
  
"Children?" Merry asked.  
  
"Wha' children?" Pippin wanted to know.  
  
"You," Legolas hissed to the four Hobbits, poisonously. "You four."  
  
Muffling the Hobbit protestations admirably, Legolas steered them towards the stairs and started herding them upwards. "Pippin and Frodo will be in room 24," he told them firmly, "and Merry and Sam will be in 25. And you are not going to argue with me!"  
  
"Aww! I wannae be wit' Merry!"  
  
"I'm not so sure rooming with Merry is such a great idea, Mr Legolassir.!"  
  
"And I wanna be with Pippin!"  
  
"And I DON'T want to be with Pippin!"  
  
"I really do not care," Legolas said evenly (*project an aura of outer Elvishness and complete and unflappable serenity, Legolas, that's good...*), "who you want to room with. You are going where I say, when I say, in the two middle rooms because then Aragorn and I, and Gandalf and Gimli, can muffle your noise and be a buffer zone for the poor occupants of rooms 22 and 27. ALL RIGHT?!"  
  
"Yes," the Hobbits chorused, each one secretly plotting to shift rooms as soon as Legolas wasn't looking.  
  
**  
  
By the time everyone was safely installed in a room (Legolas gave up on moving the Hobbits back to their designated room after Merry and Sam swapped over for the ninth time), it was starting to get dark, and the Hobbits were moaning about being hungry. And THAT was when Legolas sat down on one of the twin singles in his and Aragorn's room (Gimli, despite being Legolas's best friend, refused point blanc to roomie with him, at home or anywhere else) and realised a few things.  
  
"Aragorn...?"  
  
"What is it?" the Ranger asked, plopping down on his own bed and collapsing backwards, exhausted.  
  
"Where are the cases?"  
  
"I dunno...or care...ai!! Oh, shit, did you say cases?!"  
  
"Yes. I did."  
  
"But my boxers are in there!"  
  
"And my haircare stuff...!"  
  
"Who cares about your hair whatsits, I went through all hell to get those boxers this morning and I'm not losing them now!"  
  
"I'll go and see Gandalf," Legolas offered, "and ask if he remembered to get the cases out of the taxi."  
  
Legolas set off down the corridor, and knocked on the door of room 23. It was opened by Gimli, looking furious. "HE forgot the cases!"  
  
"You care?" Legolas asked naïvely.  
  
"OF COURSE I CARE! My mithril und--never mind. Suffice it to say I care!"  
  
"Your mithril Y-fronts," Legolas teased, not realising how right he was. "Can I come in, please, I want to talk to Gandalf."  
  
"Oh. Right." Gimli, scarlet under his beard and helmet, opened the door a little more and let Legolas in.  
  
"Mithrandir?" the Elf called, using Gandalf's Elven name.  
  
"Yes?" said a depressed-sounding voice from the en-suit.  
  
"He locked himself in there when I pointed out about the cases," Gimli said helpfully.  
  
Legolas blinked. "Right. Er. Gandalf.can't you magic the cases here?"  
  
"I'm trying, fool of a Greenleaf!"  
  
"Oh. Right. Sorry. Do you think you'll do it?"  
  
"I'm an Istar, no less, and a Maiar too, of course I can do it!"  
  
"Ye-es..." Pause, blink, think for a moment... "Can you do it...fast?"  
  
"Give me a minute, for crying out loud!"  
  
"Right." Legolas, knowing a death threat when one was implied, shut up.  
  
A minute or two later, two heavy suitcases appeared, one a foot in the air above each bed. They shimmered for a moment, then dropped heavily onto the beds, unmaking the neatly hospital-cornered sheets.  
  
"There," said Gandalf happily, as he strode out from the bathroom. "That's one taxi a little lighter tonight."  
  
"Those are...our...cases, aren't they?"  
  
"Yes. Definitely."  
  
"WOOHOO!" said a voice from the next room.  
  
"I don't think I want to know what Merry and Pippin put in theirs," Legolas said, wisely. "Thank you, Mithrandir."  
  
"You're welcome, Legolas."  
  
And Legolas high-tailed it back to room 26, to find an ecstatic Aragorn gleefully dancing around with some clean boxers. Legolas raised his eyebrows so high they almost left his forehead. "Ahem!"  
  
"Eek!" Aragorn commented, and quickly shoved the boxers back in his suitcase. "Hi! Er...ahem..."  
  
Legolas, for sanity's sake, decided not to comment, and in any case (pun intended), before he had a chance to, there was a hammering at the door.  
  
"Let us in, Lego!"  
  
"Aye, it's soddin' frizzin' oot 'ere!"  
  
Legolas was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he was going to spend his eternity deciding not to pass comment on unusual things the others said or did (freezing? In a four-star hotel?) and just opened the door, to find Merry and Pippin standing in the corridor in hotel bathrobes. "Get in here," Legolas hissed. "Now! What the hell are you doing in hotel bathrobes?!"  
  
"We wur 'avin a bath," Pippin offered.  
  
"Both of you?!"  
  
"Nae, Merry war in the shower."  
  
"And that's any BETTER?!!"  
  
"Tek a look in yer an-swyeet! There's a shower cubicle an' everythin', it's no' like we wur in th' same bloody bat' or anyt'in!"  
  
Legolas poked his head into the en-suit and had a look. Pippin was right: there was a bath and separate shower cubicle, with a frosted glass door. Somehow, though, that didn't make him feel much better. "Go on."  
  
Merry took up the tale. "Well...we got hungry."  
  
"Hungry! Shit! I completely forgot about dinner!" That was the second of Legolas's Great Realisations.  
  
"You swore," Merry noted, wide-eyed.  
  
"It's not than uncommon an occurrence, around you lot," Legolas told him sharply. "Shitshitshit! What're we going to do about dinner? I bet you two ate everything I put in the cool-box!"  
  
Merry had the grace to look embarrassed; Pippin just nodded brashly.  
  
"And the hotel restaurant is way too good for you two. You'd scare away all the other customers!"  
  
"Ah would not!"  
  
"Yes you would, don't argue, good Hobbit. Ohshitohshitohshit..."  
  
"We could always go to McDonalds," said Meriadoc 'McDonalds Marauder' Brandybuck. Pippin the fast-food junkie nodded in agreement.  
  
"Ew," commented Legolas, but he couldn't see many other options. McDonalds, it seemed, was the only way to go. "Is there one nearby?"  
  
"End of the street and turn right," Merry answered a little a little too promptly.  
  
Legolas sighed. "All right. Who's got money?" *I'm certainly not spending my hard-saved cash on McDonalds food for hungry Hobbits!*  
  
Merry and Pippin looked at one another. "Errrrr..." They looked at one another, then turned hopeful faces up to Legolas. He glared back down at them.  
  
"I know you've been saving, you two, or at least that you're getting money from somewhere."  
  
"Awwww," Pippin said.  
  
"Urgh," Merry added.  
  
"All reet," Pippin relented, "we'll pay oor way. Bu' ye lo' 'er payin' fer yeselves."  
  
"ME and a greasy McDonalds hamburger? Oh, per-lease!" Legolas said, wrinkling his nose.  
  
"Did someone say hamburger?" Aragorn wanted to know.  
  
"Unfortunately," Legolas affirmed.  
  
"Ooh goodie! Where? I'm starving!"  
  
"Urrrrgh..."  
  
**  
  
Ten minutes later, the entire Fellowship was in the local McDonalds, crushed around two small tables pushed together. Boromir, visible as ever only to the Middle-earthers, was floating near to the ceiling, lying on one side, head propped up on one hand, the elbow and most of his nonexistent body apparently resting happily on nothing at all.  
  
"Remind me why you needed to get super-size fries?" Legolas said for the millionth time, massaging an ever-growing headache.  
  
"Coz we're 'ung'y!" Merry replied through a mouthful of Big Mac.  
  
"Mmmph!" Pippin added, speaking around a large bite of McQuarter Pounder with Cheese.  
  
Legolas looked vaguely ill and concentrated fiercely on the napkins. "Have you two any idea what you're DOING to yourselves?!"  
  
"Feedin'?"  
  
"No! Do you know what's IN those things?"  
  
"Meat an' shtuff," Merry said intelligently.  
  
"Additives! E-numbers! Colorants and sweeteners!" Legolas informed them frustratedly. "LOTS thereof!"  
  
"You should be a nutritional consultant, Leafy," Gimli said, putting down his McChicken Sandwich (McDonalds, much to his chagrin, didn't do anything involving ale, beer or Wild Meat, by which Gimli meant boars and deers and orcs and the like), and nodding slowly.  
  
"Maybe," Legolas said darkly, glaring at the miscreant Hobbits. "Is there any non-e-numbered lettuce in this place?"  
  
Merry and Pippin twitched their noses, pretending to be rabbits. Legolas shot them a withering glance; Aragorn, supportively enough, kicked them both sharply under the table. "Doubt it," the Ranger said innocently, covering Merry and Pippin's yelps. The two Hobbits looked at each other with their special 'we'll meet later to plot revenge' expressions all over their seemingly innocent faces.  
  
Legolas's soliloquy of depression, his instant reaction to Aragorn's news, was interrupted (thankfully, the rest of the Fellowship thought. Legolas's soliloquies had been known to go on for hours, especially the depressed ones) - perhaps unfortunately - by a group of female teenagers. "'Scuse me," one of them said, tapping Legolas on the shoulder, "are you Orlando Bloom by any chance?"  
  
"No," Legolas said tightly, "I'm afraid not."  
  
"Oh," said the teenager - a blonde C-cup from whom Pippin and Merry could not tear their eyes. "Sorry. S'just you look exactly like that guy he plays in 'Lord of the Rings', whatshisface, you know, the elf bloke--"  
  
"Legolas," Legolas said firmly, beginning to understand the whole LOTR movie deal a little better, since a hurried explanation by Boromir (he would have been killed if he hadn't already been dead). "Thranduilion."  
  
"No, wasn't it Legolas Greenleaf?"  
  
"That's the translation of m--of his first name," Legolas said, recovering quickly from his slip-up. He didn't mind THIS fangirl so much, even if her persistence was a bit annoying. Mortal women were all the same, but at least this one wasn't screaming at him. In desire and longing. "His father was Thranduil, the King of the Elven Realm Greenwood the Great (later renamed Mirkwood due to the untimely interlopers, such as giant spiders and trolls, which came from the Misty Mountains and colonised the once-proud Greenwood), and the suffix '-ion' on the end of any son's name means 'son of'; therefore, Legolas Thranduilion literally means 'Legolas, son of Thranduil,' or to be even more exact, 'Green leaf, son of Thranduil,' and-- "  
  
"Oh," said the teenager, interrupting. "Only they called him Greenleaf in the movie."  
  
"Really," said Legolas in tones of great interest, making a mental note to see this Movie as soon as possible.  
  
"You know an awful lot about him," the teenager said brightly.  
  
"Mmmm," Legolas muttered distractedly.  
  
"But, I guess, if you're not Orli..." She straightened up and made as if to go. "Sorry 'bout the mistake, mister. Nice chatting to you," she added happily, and wandered off to order.  
  
Her friend, a short girl with bright green eyes and flame-red hair, had managed to squeeze in between Merry and Pippin, who were very happy with this arrangement. They were holding a detailed discussion about various nu- rock and metal bands, such as Metallika, Greenday, and Blink 182 (Merry and Pippin kept up-to-date with musical developments; they were currently moshers though by next month they'd probably be Goths or punks or something).  
  
Another of the group, a tall brunette with straight mahogany hair three- quarters of the way down her back, was talking to Aragorn. "You really remind me of someone," she was telling him. "You know, someone out of a film. I know!" she said in a burst of sudden realisation. "It's the 'Lord of the Rings' thingamer, you know, the one that came out end of last year? You remind me of that Ranger bloke, the one the little things called Strider or something, you know?"  
  
*One more 'you know'*, Aragorn thought, *and I'm going to have to throttle her. Mind, she does look a bit like a younger Arwen, only her eyes aren't as nice...and her--* It was at this point that he VERY firmly disconnected his libido from his brain. He was WAY too old for her anyhow, seeing as how he was getting on for several millennia and all. "Oh?" he said, smiling blankly at her. "That ranger bloke, huh?"  
  
"Yeah," the brunette said. "I'm Desiree, you know, by the way. What was he called again?"  
  
Aragorn considered throttling her but instead got distracted going through his various names. "Aragorn, Strider, Wingfoot, Longshanks, Estel, Elfstone, Elessar, Dúnedan--" He stopped suddenly, realising Desiree was positively goggling at him.  
  
"Whoa," she muttered. "Er. Never mind. Mr Mortensen. Sir." She started edging away slowly, then made a break for it to join her blonde friend in the queue. "I never realised the guys who played other guys in movies got so, you know, INTO the roles!" she enthused. "You know, I reckon he's that Mortensen guy, you know, who played the ranger bloke in that film? And he's just, you know, sitting there QUOTING me everything anyone ever called that guy, Strider, you know? And some I haven't ever heard of too!! It's, you know, amazing?"  
  
"I KNOW!" the blonde squealed. "See the one that looks JUST like Orli Bloom?! The blonde guy who's, like, to the short ones' left? Yah? Well he TOTALLY knew, like, EVERYTHING about elves and Legolas and, like, EVERYTHING! Actors are, like, SO cooooooooooool!!"  
  
Desiree nodded. "You're telling me. You know. I reckon he is Orli, just, you know, not saying it in case he gets, you know, massacred or something?"  
  
"Yeah," the blonde said, nodding. "Prob'ly. Oh," she added, realising she was at the front of the queue, "I'll have a, er, Chicken McNugget Meal, please..."  
  
Legolas watched the girls with a detached sort of Elven superiority. Great Realisation Number Three: Female movie fans are bad. BAD!! Not to mention completely crackers...  
  
**  
  
Late that night, long after the others were asleep, Legolas - having meditated for a couple of hours while everyone else was...doing something the elf probably didn't want to know about - got up, made sure he had the key to Room 26, and went outside for a breath of fresh air.  
  
Not a bright idea. London is one of those amazing cities that has a tendency to never sleep, and is also populated by a...varied...clientele. A tall blonde person standing dreamily below a streetlamp in the hazy London smog (complete with Elven night time glow), wearing some kind of leggings with knee boots and a shirty-tunic-type thing was just too much for one greasy pimp to resist. A small and very battered Ford pulled up to the pavement by Legolas and someone hissed: "Hey, babe - how much an hour?"  
  
"Er, pardon?" Legolas said, blinking, completely lost off.  
  
"Half an hour?"  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"Oh come on, you can't be standing there like that and tell me you're not a...?!"  
  
"Umm. I don't think I'm a...?! What IS a...?!"  
  
"Just get in the car, okay??"  
  
"I really think I'd better not..."  
  
"Come on, the missus kicked me out an' I need something to make me feel good...!"  
  
"Then might I suggest a warm bath, with plenty of bubbles, a nice hair- wash, a good stiff night-cap, and a good nights' sleep," Legolas said understandingly.  
  
"Sounds good to me, babe--"  
  
"Right then, why don't you come in and we'll see if you can have a room in the hotel--"  
  
"Mmmmmmrrrrr..."  
  
Legolas led the way into the hotel, oblivious to the guy's intents. A few minutes later, there was a frantic scrabbling at the door of Room 26 and a panicky-looking Elf burst in and threw himself on the empty single bed.  
  
Aragorn turned over and cracked an eyelid. "What the hell...? Lego, it's 2am!!"  
  
"Help me! Mad humans...think I'm...don't know WHAT he thinks I am...but I know it wasn't good...all I was doing was standing there, what's the law against that--!?"  
  
It took Aragorn a long time to calm his friend down that night (minds out of gutter please, this is a non-slash fic), but by 6.30 on Thursday morning, Legolas was starting to come to his fourth Great Realisation...  
  
It is NEVER a good idea to stand beneath a streetlamp when you're as damn sexy (and effeminate) as an Elf is.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Addendum: (I don't do author's notes, I do Addendums, or Epilogues sometimes...bear with me, it's all the same idea really...) The whole part about Thranduilion I got from my Encyclopaedia of Tolkien, which is Not Authorised by Tolkien Estates Or New Line Cinema, but written by some supposed JRRT buff, so I thought it was pretty trustworthy info. If anyone cares to contradict, please review or mail me, and we can discuss it or make corrections or something... ^_^ (I do so love intelligent, cultured discussion on the works of the great Tolkien - no, really!)  
  
Chapter Three is in the works, for those who care :)  
  
PS Thankies to Captain-Emily for the following idea: "Then might I suggest a warm bath, with plenty of bubbles, a nice hair-wash, a good stiff night- cap, and a good nights' sleep." She said in her review that poor ol' Leafy deserved a good stiff drink and a bubble bath, and I liked that so much it got put in, albeit mutilated a little ^_^ 


	4. Sightseeing and Hydrophobes Do Not Mix

Disclaimer: Nope, not mine today either. Haldir, Legolas and co still welcome to come round any time...In fact we're having a small cocktail party tonight (just 60 Elves or so. Thanks to my best mate Toni for the idea, and gold-leafing the invitations. Heheh).  
  
Thanks to my loyal reviewers...  
  
Captain-Emily, prepare for even sorrierness, which I know isn't a word, but Boromir gets to mangle 'corporealism', so I get to mangle 'sorrierness'!! ^_^  
  
Speaking of our favourite dead person, Alynna Lis Eachann, chapter four will be a wee bit more Boromir-orientated...I think (hope) you might like it. Try and live through chapter 3 first, because I had this almost written when I got your review and it sort of wouldn't change. Chapter four is in the works...hope to have it up pretty soon...well, soon-ish...well, this year...  
  
Sakura Kuonji, thanks so much for your short but effective comment *grins* I most certainly do intend to continue, assuming schoolwork levels permit!!  
  
Emerald Griffin, I'm glad you like it ^_^ Yes, I've said it before and I'll say it again - I intend to continue, whether school will let me is another matter!! I shall have to organise my time so I make SURE I get to continue it.  
  
And at this point, Zophi (a.k.a. moi) realises she has (I have) a LOT of History homework to do for...well, ASAP, actually, seeing as how it's already late and all...and panics and logs off to do History till it's coming out of her (my) cute little pointed Elf-ears... -.-*  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
3: Day One, Thursday; Sightseeing Part I  
  
"Boromir," Aragorn hissed. "Boromir! Where are you?"  
  
There was a small popping noise and the ghostly form appeared, hovering as usual in mid-air. "You called, Estel?"  
  
"Don't call me that," Aragorn said firmly. "Yes, I did. I need information."  
  
It was nine am on the Thursday morning: the first real, full day of their holiday, and Aragorn was taking control because Legolas - still recovering from last night's 'discoveries' - had disappeared into the bathroom for a comforting warm bath, with plenty of bubbles, and a nice hair-wash (not using Herbal Essences, as it happened. Tea-tree shampoo and matching conditioner was the current trend), and Gandalf was busy doing 'important Maiar things' in Room 23.  
  
"Information, huh?" Boromir drawled. "I don't know...it'll cost you..."  
  
"It damn well won't," Aragorn said. He was getting pissed off already, and it was only 9am... Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, he continued with some measure of sanity: "All I need to know is who took the London bus timetable Legolas had the presence of mind to pick up from King's Cross station, and where it is now. Please."  
  
"Bus timetable huh?" Boromir said. "Hmmm...and why might I know?"  
  
"Because you're a bloody well ghost," Aragorn said. "You don't sleep, you don't go out and pick up strange men to traumatise you, I have a sneaking suspicion you spend your death spying on us while we're asleep, and you're a darn sight more difficult to kill than any of these other twits I have to live with!"  
  
"I rather liked the last point," Boromir said, plopping translucently down on Aragorn's unmade bed, and sinking straight through it. "All right, all right...Pippin filched the timetable out of Legolas' pocket when he was complaining about the E-numbers in a McDonald's hamburger. Okay?"  
  
"Right. Thank you."  
  
"Why were you so certain that someone'd taken it?"  
  
Aragorn didn't deign to respond to that, thinking that with the Hobbits around it was obvious why he'd been certain someone'd taken it. Instead, he shot Boromir a grateful glance and headed out of the door, striding purposefully towards room 24...  
  
**  
  
Four arguments, a lot of spilled shampoo ("ARGH! You FOOL of a DEAD PERSON!! GET OUT OF HERE!! NOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!"), three (and a half) fights, one restrained hobbit, and a ripped bus timetable later, Aragorn - in a far worse temper than before - stormed back to Room 26, and walked slap-bang into the door before realising he'd forgotten to grab the key. "Owww!...Legs...Lemme in..."  
  
"Just a minute!"  
  
Aragorn leant against the wall and waited. Precisely one minute later, the door opened. "Forget your key?" Legolas asked, hair dripping wet and a towel over his shoulders (and, thankfully, wearing a hotel bathrobe).  
  
"Ye-es," Aragorn said testily.  
  
"Oh. Come on in then. Did you get the bus timetable back?"  
  
"How d'you know about the bus timetable?"  
  
Legolas pointed a long forefinger at one eartip. "Elf, Aragorn. Can hear (and see, but that's beside the point) in great detail for miles. I couldn't exactly help hearing you yelling on about it earlier. Besides, I knew Pippin had pinched it. I just thought he wanted to LOOK at it or something."  
  
"Naïve elf," Aragorn commented dryly. "Pippin, take an innocent look at anything?"  
  
Legolas blinked. "Yes, all right, all right... Where'd you put my hairdryer?"  
  
Aragorn sighed. "It's on the shelves by the door."  
  
"Thanks." Legolas marched over and retrieved the hairdryer, with added volumizing attachment. And the straighteners...and the serum...  
  
"For God's sake, Lego," Aragorn said through gritted teeth, "you never used to faff on with all this airy-fairy elfy-hairy crap."  
  
"I never used to be millions of years old with the imminent danger of the Dreaded Split Ends," Legolas shot back instantly.  
  
Aragorn sighed again. "Well, if you must, hurry up, okay? What's the plan for today?"  
  
Legolas visibly brightened. Plans he was good at, and organising Fellowships to follow said plans was a particular forte. "I thought we could take a bus over to Greenwich, and go to see the Observatory and the timeline?"  
  
"O...kay...So how do we get over the river?" Having taken fourteen advanced- level courses in Geography, not to mention ranger-training classes, Aragorn knew quite a bit about the layout of...well, almost everywhere, really.  
  
"Ferry," Legolas said instantaneously. "As foot passengers. Then we'll get another bus on the other side to get to the Observatory."  
  
"Right," Aragorn said. "Sounds like a plan. You done with those bloody straighteners yet?"  
  
"I hate doing this, you know," Legolas clarified as he ran the plates down his already-straight blonde hair one more time, for good measure.  
  
"Suuuure you do," Aragorn muttered. "Hey," he added, louder, "isn't the Maritime Museum somewhere near there too?"  
  
"Yeeeesss..." Legolas said slowly.  
  
"We could go see that too, couldn't we?"  
  
"Errrr......"  
  
"Oh, go on. Just cos you've got a pathological fear of the sea, doesn't mean you have to spoil it for the rest of us. I'm sure the hobbits would love the Maritime. Maybe we could suspend them off the top of a ten-foot- high anchor, or something, in any case."  
  
"Err. Okay. I'll try it. I suppose. For you."  
  
Aragorn blanched. "That sounded very..."  
  
Legolas snapped the straighteners shut and unplugged the electrical cable. "Grow up, Estel! I've roomed with you for millennia; if I was going to be 'very' anything I'd've been it by now. Honestly, you Men have no idea of heterosexual male warrior bonding..."  
  
Aragorn was starting to look more than a little afraid. "Hetero? Promise?"  
  
Legolas shot him one of his patented I'm-getting-sick-of-this-you-measly- human looks. "Good grief. I'm starting to wonder about YOU now."  
  
"Me?!"  
  
"Yes, you. Stop asking self-incriminating questions and go get the hobbits up. Oh, but before you head out the door at one hell of a rate of knots, can I ask a question?"  
  
"Only if it doesn't involve the words 'do', 'you', 'love', 'me', and 'back', in that order."  
  
"It damn well doesn't, and nothing I ever ask you will, all right?"  
  
"Right," Aragorn said quickly. "Ask away, then."  
  
"Okay. Should I wear my indigo jeans or dark-brown leggings with this shirt? Or, maybe a different shirt--?" Legolas undid the neatly-fastened collar button and reached for a different top.  
  
Aragorn's eyes widened and he fled.  
  
"What'd I say?" a very confused Legolas asked the empty room at large.  
  
**  
  
"Ah dinnae wannae ge' up ye' tho'!"  
  
"Shake a LEG, Pippin!" Merry whacked his cousin hard on the shoulder and dodged Pip's flailing fists and obediently, if violently, shaking (read: kicking) leg. Aragorn, whom Merry had let in a moment ago, stood aside, watching with some amusement.  
  
"Ah wannae go tae sleep..."  
  
"You've been asleep all night, or at least I bloody well hope so," Merry replied. "Come on!!"  
  
Aragorn grinned. It was so unusual to see the indomitable Merry-and-Pippin team divided over something, he just had to stand back and see how this panned out.  
  
"Lemme go back tae bladdey SLEEP, ye grea' clodhoppin' Brandybuck..."  
  
"No!" Merry thumped Pippin hard in the small of the back. Aragorn could see that this - amusing though it was - might well go on for hours, and he had to get the team moving now (or sooner).  
  
"Pi-ippin," he said sweetly, "I'll convince Legolas to let us stop for hotdogs as second breakfast, if you get up now."  
  
"Wha's fer fust breakfas'?" Pippin asked warily, wanting to know exactly what kind of a deal he was getting.  
  
"Er...we'll see what the hotel has to offer," Aragorn replied, praying that they still did breakfast at 9.20am.  
  
Pippin peered out from under the duvet, and gave Aragorn the hobbity evil eye. He considered, for a moment, asking why he was being allowed in the restaurant now when last night Legolas had been adamant they wouldn't go near it, but - as Merry had so often pointed out - food was food. And besides - IF the hotel did full fried English breakfasts - fried brekkies came with MUSHROOMS, didn't they...!!  
  
"A'righ', a'righ'," he said with an over-the-top sigh. "Geroot, ye dirty grea' Ranger, so's Ah ken gat dressed. Ah'll be righ' there."  
  
**  
  
"How COULD you?" Legolas hissed to Aragorn as they sat side by side opposite Merry and Pippin, at a table for four in the hotel breakfast diner. "How COULD you bribe Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took with HOTEL BREAKFASTS?? They're going to clean the poor place completely out of mushrooms!" He paused, looked at the hobbits opposite, who were in their fried-breakfasty element. "And bacon. And toast. And sausages. And--"  
  
"Okay, so I made a mistake," Aragorn hissed back. "Doesn't everyone now and then, Mr bloody Elf Perfect 2002? What time is it anyway?"  
  
Legolas checked his wristwatch. "Ten o'clock. What can we do if we set off at TEN o'clock!?"  
  
"Plenty," Aragorn said soothingly. "Trust me!"  
  
A general rule of thumb that the Fellowship had quickly learnt as their life together went on was never to trust Aragorn when he said 'trust me', but right then, Legolas was too exhausted and given-up to think about that.  
  
He would probably regret that lack of thought later.  
  
**  
  
Half an hour later, the entire Fellowship was piled onto a bright red double-decker London bus - the old-fashioned, rather rickety kind - and were headed for the river. "I hate buses," Boromir was saying despondently. "They're so...you know...ugh. Public transport-y."  
  
"You never had anything against public transport in the Third Age," Frodo pointed out. After a few days of Boromir's constant presence, his fear of 'The Ghost' tended to subside. It was only when Boromir went away for a couple of weeks, months, years...centuries...that Frodo got nervous at his return.  
  
"That," Boromir said, "is because in those days, public transport basically equalled walking somewhere with someone else!!"  
  
Frodo thought about this for a moment. "There is that," he conceded.  
  
Their conversation was cut short by Gandalf's firm interruption, intended for all of the Fellowship's hearing: "It's our stop next, so pay attention and be ready!"  
  
"Or, in simpler English: anyone poncy enough to have a handbag, grab it an' get ready tae go," Pippin said with a smirk. Merry sniggered.  
  
"Heyy!" said Legolas, who was carrying a canvas shoulder-bag full of all the essentials anyone would need for a three-year trek into the desert, and Sam, who was stuck lugging the picnic cooler. Both hobbit and elf realised the futility of arguing, though, and consigned themselves to sighing exaggeratedly at one another.  
  
The bus lurched to a stop, prompting Aragorn to leap up and pound down the skinny spiral stairs, almost crashing into a blue-rinsed old dear on her way up. The slightly shell-shocked old dear muttered misguided things about the youth of today (Aragorn was, after all, neither a 'youth' nor 'of today'); and tried to whack him with her handbag, but missed due to the simple fact that Aragorn was moving at much greater velocity than the handbag. Legolas, following as quickly as anyone carrying a canvas shoulder- bag chock-full of...stuff...could, apologised to her en route to catching up with Aragorn, who was, by now, halfway down the street.  
  
An elf, even an elf with a very large shoulder-bag, can always move faster than a human, and so it only took seconds for Legolas to get beside Aragorn and grab his shoulder. "Where are you off to?" he hissed in Elvish, hoping any nosy passers-by would think it was Greek or something. "And where are we anyway?"  
  
"Mellonamin," Aragorn responded kindly, "welcome to Greenwich. In particular," he added, also speaking in Elvish, and motioning to the large glass-fronted building they were headed towards, "welcome to the Maritime Museum."  
  
Legolas blinked. "Umm. That's the Maritime Museum?"  
  
"Yes." By this time the Hobbits and Gandalf were also standing around near them, looking bored. Gimli had vanished into a small nautical shop and was deep in conversation with the owner. Boromir was floating six feet in the air, sitting cross-legged on the head of a German tourist who was peering confusedly at a map and asking, "Und ver am ich now?" of an equally perplexed Cockney gentleman who didn't understand a word of German (or a bemusing mix of German and English), and was loudly enquiring, "Wot's that, sorry, guv'na?"  
  
"Tell you what," Legolas said gamely, "you go ahead and I'll go and get Gimli."  
  
"Ohh no," Aragorn said firmly. "You're coming with us. Gandalf, you go get Gimli. We're heading for the Maritime; catch us up."  
  
Gandalf nodded and dived into the nautical memorabilia store while Aragorn grabbed Legolas's arm and yanked him along the pavement. "I don't LIKE the sea any more!"  
  
"Why not?" Aragorn asked out of genuine interest. "You were mad keen to sail west when I knew you in the Third Age. What changed?"  
  
"Lots of things," Legolas sniffed petulantly. "For a start, the West turned out to be America."  
  
"I can see how that might be depressing, not to mention more than a bit off- putting," Aragorn allowed.  
  
"And then I was in the navy in the Elizabethan era, and the Queen - the Queen! The supposed figurehead of decency! - wanted us to go out and plunder Spanish ships for no apparent reason. Now if the Spaniards had been Orcs I would have been fine with that - but people - ?!"  
  
A Japanese teenager who happened to be passing gave Legolas a very strange look and ran to her friends, jabbering excitedly about the kawaii blonde crazy guy.  
  
Aragorn ignored the tourists and nodded understandingly as he pulled Legolas to the right and up the long gravel path leading up to the Maritime Museum. The Elf, talking about the eighteenth-century Merchant Navy, barely noticed the change in direction.  
  
"And submarines! In the First World War I somehow ended up on a submarine and it was absolutely terrifying."  
  
"YOU were terrified?" Aragorn asked, genuinely shocked.  
  
"YES," meeped Legolas irritably. "I never intended to see UNDER the sea!"  
  
"Hmm," Aragorn said thoughtfully, walking firmly forward. "Come on... I'm still not letting you cry out of this. You're not sticking me with the hobbits for an hour while we go round here and you sit out."  
  
"Oh joy..."  
  
**  
  
"HOI, ARAGORN, WE'RE GOIN' UPSTAIRS, ALREET?"  
  
Aragorn sighed and shot Merry and Pippin a weary thumbs-up. "Gimli, go with them...please?"  
  
"Why me?!"  
  
"Because Legolas, our usual hobbit-watcher, is too busy looking at the gold leafing on that longboat-type thing over there, and Gandalf's vanished into the gift shop to make sure Frodo and Sam don't blow our budget in one fell swoop. That leaves you."  
  
"No it doesn't. What about you?"  
  
"I'm watching the hobbit-watcher for signs of psychotic incident."  
  
"And Boromir?"  
  
"Hasn't been seen in half an hour."  
  
Gimli frowned. "Och...all right. If I must, I suppose..." And he stomped off upstairs, muttering about how nobody (and no ex-bodies) could be relied upon these days, and in HIS day, why, things had been so different, and... "WHAT in the WORLD are you two DOING?!"  
  
"Hangin'," Merry said in a bored sort of voice. This was, broadly, quite true: the two miscreant hobbits were in fact perched on the thin metal barrier around the upper balcony and dangling their feet in thin air.  
  
"Get off there, ye great idiots!"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"In case you fall." Not that that'd be such a loss.  
  
"We will'nae fall," Pippin said irritably. "We're hobbits!"  
  
"Which has nothing to do with anything," Gimli said irritably. "Off there. NOW."  
  
"Awwwww..." Merry and Pippin reluctantly complied.  
  
"Good hobbits. Good."  
  
The 'good hobbits' quietly exchanged 'We'll get him later' looks.  
  
**  
  
"Aragorn, LOOK!"  
  
"Now what?" the Ranger asked unhappily. For a supposed hydrophobe, this Elf sure was having a hell of a good time. "I thought you didn't want to come here, anyhow."  
  
"Oh, Aragorn, really," Legolas sighed, before proceeding to completely screw up Aragorn's version of events: "Now stop being so childish, you know it was me who had to drag you in here. Come here, I want to show you something."  
  
Aragorn blinked a lot of times, very fast. "Umm...You had to drag...HUH!!?"  
  
"Yes, you dirty great wimp. Look at this, it's the front of a real Elizabethan boat hung up on the wall!"  
  
"You hated Elizabethan sailing," Aragorn protested weakly.  
  
"Which is not to say their boats weren't beautiful," Legolas said happily. Having thoroughly screwed Aragorn's thought patterns, he turned on his heel and stalked off to try out the whirlpool simulator.  
  
Risking a quick glance behind him, he noted the utterly bewildered expression on his friend's face. It was true, then: Revenge WAS sweet. Mixing Aragorn up was fun at the best of times, but this had been Payback, and it had been WORTH it. Blinking, Legolas kept a firm mental hold on the sick sort of feeling inside of him, and redoubled the excited-innocent-Elf façade.  
  
**  
  
"Gimliiiiiiii!"  
  
"WHAT?!" Gimli said tetchily. This was only the tenth time Merry and/or Pippin had whined his name in half as many minutes.  
  
"We're hungry."  
  
"Well, yeh'll just have to wait."  
  
"We don't want to wait. We're goin' tae the coffee shop."  
  
"No you are NOT," Gimli said, more out of a sense of self-preservation than anything else. "You're coming with me. We'll find the others and get out of here."  
  
"YAY!"  
  
"WOOHOO!"  
  
Gimli frowned. Or maybe it was a grimace; it was hard to tell in Dwarves.  
  
**  
  
It took a full half an hour to round everyone - all the bodies, at least - up, and even then Boromir was missing. "Has anyone seen him?" Gandalf asked, scratching his head. Thankfully he'd left his pointy hat at the hotel, but he was still pretty ostentatious in a ankle-length grey robe ("White gets dirty too easily!") and sandals...worn with socks!!... so it hadn't been too hard to find HIM. And he'd sent up a flare (somehow...using some magic words and theatrical hand movements only. When Aragorn thought about it, he decided either the words or the hand movements were for show, but couldn't figure out which way round it went) to help locate the others, who had found themselves magically drawn to the reception desk. (At said reception desk they had found a strangely innocent-looking Gandalf, a fuming Gimli, and two bickering Hobbits, none of which seemed to bode well for what was to come).  
  
"Missing, presumed dead," Frodo said helpfully, his good humour by now fully restored.  
  
"Ha bloody ha," Aragorn said crossly. "BOROMIR!"  
  
"Yes?" said a sugary-sweet voice by Aragorn's left ear.  
  
The ranger's eyes swivelled left but his head remained perfectly still. "Boromir. We're leaving now..."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"That was easy," Aragorn sighed. "Hang on...Boromir...why can't I see you?"  
  
"Don't feel like being corporeal right now."  
  
"I'm not asking for corporealism," Aragorn said, mangling the word right up, "I'm asking for visibility!"  
  
"Do I have to?"  
  
"YES." This said in a very firm, very flat monotone.  
  
"Aw..." There was a small popping noise, and the vaguely transparent Boromir appeared, sitting cross-legged in mid air, dressed in Elizabethan Spanish navy regalia.  
  
"Where'd you get that uniform?" Gandalf asked suspiciously.  
  
"Don't blow a gasket," Boromir huffed. "I only saw one somewhere and copied it; it's not real, see? Aragorn, stick your arm out."  
  
"Why!?"  
  
"Because I am NOT demonstrating by floating through anything else anyone might feel like sticking out!"  
  
"Oh for goodness' sakes," Legolas said irritably, "we believe you, okay? Now come on, everybody out."  
  
"What's got into him?" Aragorn wondered aloud. "He was mad keen on this place not so long ago."  
  
"Aragorn," Gandalf said wisely, "an Elf can only keep up an act for so long."  
  
"Yeah, why d'you think Arwen left you?" Boromir asked, earning himself a dirty look.  
  
**  
  
Having appeased the hobbits' ever-voracious appetites, the Fellowship moved on to the Greenwich Timeline and Observatory. The hobbits dashed around the museum and went straight up to the Observatory, where they ducked under the barrier and started looking through the telescope. After being kicked out by a not inconsiderable number of burly security guards and wandering around the park for some time, they decided enough was enough and snuck back into the museum. They were heading for the Observatory again when Legolas and Aragorn collared them. Legolas picked Merry and Frodo up by the collars, and Aragorn hoisted Sam and Pippin, and between them they got the four struggling hobbits back to where the rest of the Fellowship was, which was in the Planetarium, awaiting a showing.  
  
"I don't WANT to see the stars! We can see the stars any time! I don't want to - "  
  
"Shut UP, Merry!"  
  
"Why?!"  
  
"Because I say so, all right?"  
  
"But whyyyy?"  
  
"Because if you don't," and here Aragorn put his face worryingly close to Merry's; "I shall do something extremely painful to nerves you didn't even know you had, and make sure that you have a lifelong phobia of the word 'why' and indeed, of speaking itself. ALL RIGHT?!"  
  
"Yessah!"  
  
"Good. Now shut up and get in there, the show's starting."  
  
"Yessah!"  
  
"I said, SHUT UP!"  
  
**  
  
Forty-five minutes later, the Fellowship emerged, blinking, back into the sunlight. Aragorn, having all but clobbered Merry and Pippin during the show, was suffering from a case of post-trying-to-silently-clobber-two- hobbits-three-seats-away-without-anyone-else-noticing-itis, which left Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf to deal with the hobbit contingency. Boromir was no help at all, having gone all poetic about the stars and sky and heaven and the like; and Legolas wasn't much better, so Gimli and Gandalf were essentially left to it themselves.  
  
The wizard was just starting to wish, for the millionth time, that Legolas hadn't insisted he leave his staff in the hotel that morning ("Not even really weird old men have seven-foot walking sticks! And you're not doing any magic, so LEAVE IT!") and considering trying to make it come to him, but after making some vaguely Saruman-ish hand movements and getting odd looks from a family of random tourist passers-by, gave up. "Losing your touch?" Gimli enquired mildly, and got thwacked on the head with a rolled- up Tourists' Guide to London for his trouble.  
  
"Shut it, all right?"  
  
"Sorry. A little tetchy, are we?"  
  
"YE-ES. With Aragorn, Legolas and Boromir out of action, the task of controlling this lot falls to you and I. Does that make YOU feel good?"  
  
"Agh." Gimli considered this at length, pausing in his musings to collar Pippin and Frodo (who was suffering from a moment of post-Ringbearer traumatic stress and had gone hyper along with his cousins and Sam, who usually followed Frodo's lead after some token protestation) and stop them doing the Highland Fling in a flowerbed. "Since you mention it, no."  
  
"We're agreed, then. LEGOLAS! Come on, will you?" Gandalf half-turned on the path and shouted back to the daydreaming Elf. That vague shadow near to his left shoulder was probably Boromir, but it was hard to tell at this distance.  
  
In fact, it was Boromir, and the two of them were discussing stars. Not flaming balls of hydrogen, but the pretty twinkling lights in the sky at night. Although they weren't known for being the best of friends, in life or posthumously, this was a subject they were currently agreeing on quite happily, and as such both completely ignored Gandalf's summons. Aragorn, beginning to recover from the stress of single-handedly Hobbit-watching for three-quarters of an hour, marched back to them and dragged Legolas away by the shirt cuff. Boromir floated after aimlessly, continuing his present rant, which was on the theme of I Could Have Been Up There Among The Stars But For Various Little Happenings Along The Way None Of Which Were My Fault...  
  
"Shut up and come on," Aragorn told him genially, leading the way down the steep path away from the Observatory.  
  
"You're...okay now?" Gimli asked. This was the fastest Aragorn had ever recovered from an...episode. 'Episodes' were what the saner members of the Fellowship (i.e. everyone according to themselves, but not according to each other) called the periods when the others went temporarily insane, or at least slightly psychotic. The only one who had almost never had an Episode was Gandalf, or maybe his just looked different, but Aragorn came in a close second. When the Ranger did go off it, though, he went Off It. Usually involving a lot of beer, tissues, and Oven Fries, and nobody getting any sleep for a fortnight. An hour was a worryingly short episode, in Aragorn.  
  
"I'm fine," the Ranger carolled gaily, in the straightest sense of the word, and skipped a couple of paces. Even Legolas, through the thick fog of Elven star-lust, blinked in surprise.  
  
"Uh...are you sure?"  
  
"Sure I'm sure. Come on, will you?"  
  
"We're coming," Boromir said uncertainly, floating some metres after the others with no small amount of trepidation.  
  
"Slowly," Legolas added. For a change, he and the resident ghost were getting along with a minimum of jibes - neither had deliberately insulted the other for over an hour, which was a house (or, in this case, out-of- house) record - and the others were hoping and praying it would last. Unlikely, they knew, but everyone lives in hope. (Dying in despair, Boromir noted whenever anyone pointed this out, was the downside to that particular state of existence, which only Gandalf would ever admit was true, since he was the only one who had any hope of knowing anything about death and the like).  
  
"Very slowly," Boromir nodded, frowning. "Lego...are you worried about him?"  
  
"Do you care?" came the answer, which sort of broke the record for non- aggressive comebacks (Gandalf had been timing it. The record for Longest Civilised Conversation had indeed been broken, and the new one was one hour, seven minutes, and twenty-nine seconds).  
  
"As it happens, yes, sharp-ears, and I'd appreciate an answer!"  
  
"Since you ask...yes," Legolas conceded after a pause.  
  
Ahead, Aragorn was still skipping merrily ahead - well, perhaps 'skipping' isn't quite the word, it was more a sort of dignified bounce - completely unaware of the conversation about his sanity and wellbeing going on a hundred metres back. "Come on, people! If we hurry we can maybe make the four o'clock sailing along the Thames!"  
  
"Did we actually...book...a sail along the Thames?" Gimli asked sceptically.  
  
"Ah, well, no," Aragorn admitted at the same time as Legolas tuned in, worked out what the conversation was currently about, and wailed, "You're trying to kill me!"  
  
"I am?" Aragorn asked in genuine bewilderment, breaking off the dignified bouncing and trotting back to where Legolas was standing, looking vaguely petrified and definitely slightly panicked.  
  
"Ye-e-es! I hate sailing!"  
  
"Oh." Too late, Aragorn remembered that they had a certified hydrophobe in their midst. "Umm...I guess you could stay on land, if you prefer?"  
  
"I do!"  
  
"Right..." *Thanks a bunch, Lego,* Aragorn thought irritably; *if you stay off, we're down one on the hobbit-watcher count, and you're the best hobbiter there is in the group. Marvellous, just bloody marvellous.* "We can always count on you," he said aloud, trying to sound like he meant it.  
  
"Oh...ye-es...sorry..." Legolas frowned, and took a very deep, rather shuddery breath. "All right. I'll come."  
  
"You don't have to, you know," Gandalf said, laying a paternal hand on the Elf's shoulder (as only a wizard with a couple of hundred thousand years on him could). "I'll help Aragorn out with the hobbits, if you want to stay on the bank."  
  
"No, I'm sure, I'll come..."  
  
"Are you certain?" Gandalf asked kindly.  
  
"Oh yes," Legolas said. Nobody in the group had ever heard anyone sound more uncertain, but they (those who were, um, 'eavesdropping' might be the word) didn't particularly fancy saying so. "Posolutely absotive. I mean, absotively poso--I mean--"  
  
"All right," Aragorn interrupted brightly; "so long as you're sure - let's go!"  
  
And he led the way along the pavement towards the river.  
  
**  
  
"Wouldn't you bloody know it," was Legolas's comment when he saw the boat they were taking.  
  
"Wouldn't we bloody know what?" Frodo asked. Having calmed down somewhat since the sword-dancing in the flowerbeds incident, he was now tagging along rather worriedly at the back of the group, along with the group's resident reluctant Elf. Boromir was floating in the ether near to Frodo's left shoulder, which was doing nothing for anyone's nerves. "Boromir...go away now, please," the little hobbit added as a very nervous afterthought.  
  
"Nyet," Boromir said, in Russian for no apparent reason, smiling innocently. "What's that you were saying, sharp-ears?"  
  
"I said, wouldn't you bloody know it," Legolas repeated, stepping onto the docking flotilla.  
  
"We got that part," Frodo said. "Wouldn't you bloody know WHAT, though?"  
  
"We missed the train, we missed the bus, we got up late, we nearly missed the star show, everything's been late so far but the one thing that's on time is the bloody boaaaat!!"  
  
"Um," Frodo said intelligently. "Usually what's been late is us, can I just point out...?"  
  
"You can," Boromir said, "but I don't think he's listening." Indeed, Legolas had gone off on one of his soliloquies, and from the opening lines it sounded like a depressed one. "Damn it all, somebody interrupt him before he gets to build up steam!"  
  
Aragorn, his ranger-senses kicking in at the precise right moment, obligingly overheard the part he needed to and whacked Legolas on the arm, hard. "Shut up, Lego, okay?"  
  
"--whilst train and bus so hurriedly roll away without us onboard, and silently I look to the sky and dream of gentle fjord--ow! What was that in aid of?"  
  
"Shutting you up. When were you last within three thousand yards of a fjord?"  
  
"Ah, Nimrodel..."  
  
"Oh, bloody hell," Aragorn muttered. "And they tell me I live in the past. At least I don't go around sighing 'ah, Nimrodel' to myself!"  
  
"Naw, just 'ah, Arwen'," Pippin said cheekily.  
  
"Close your insolent mouth, Took, before I give you some concrete boots and take you for a walk along that there river," Aragorn said. "Hang on, why does he like fjords but not rivers?"  
  
"Oops," muttered Legolas, and glanced around for escape routes.  
  
The only available one was onto the Thames cruise boat, and he didn't fancy that much, but Aragorn - realising they were boarding - grabbed his shirt sleeve and dragged him on board. "Aiiiiiiii...!"  
  
**  
  
Later that evening, on the bus back to the hotel, the hobbits seemed to be having an argument. It was a very odd argument, though, because they weren't actually trying to kill one another, and were even smiling (well, Pippin was smirking and Sam was giggling, but they were all producing some variation on a basic smile).  
  
"The bath!"  
  
"Swimmin' pool!"  
  
"Pond!"  
  
"Maritime museum!"  
  
Legolas raised an eyebrow and blinked at the hobbits. "What in the wide world are you four doing?"  
  
"It's a game, of sorts, and it's us five, not those four," Aragorn told him. "Those little hair-washing things in the barber's."  
  
"Ooh, good one!" Frodo said. "Umm...lemme think...how about the shower?"  
  
"Tha' counts as part o' bat'," Pippin said. "No go."  
  
"Aw, fooz," Frodo said.  
  
"What're you actually doing?" Legolas asked again.  
  
"Umm...nothing," Sam said guiltily, jumping three feet in the air (a hard feat when on a crowded London evening bus with a cool-box on one's knee, getting squished by a pack of Hobbits, and trying hard to look innocent).  
  
"Tell me," the Elf said, smiling dangerously.  
  
Nobody liked it when Legolas's smiles went into the 'dangerous' category (except Boromir, and that was because he couldn't be killed twice) so Gimli decided to fill him in. "They're...thinkin' of watery places you DO like."  
  
"Gimli...?"  
  
"Umm...yes?"  
  
"Thank you for telling me. I'll be sure I DON'T kill you when we get back to the hotel."  
  
"Why doesn't that bode well for the rest of us?" Frodo wondered aloud, and tried hard to telepathically transmit to the other Hobbits and Aragorn - *don't tell him I started it! Please!!*  
  
~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~  
  
Addendum: Shh! Don't split on Frodo, please!! ^_~ Namáarië, mellonaminea, until next time...ch4 is coming, slowly ^_^ ~~Zophi~~  
  
PS Chapter four is getting less Boromir-y as it wears on, but I have taken comments into account and am trying to give him a greater part in all the chapters...maybe some other chapter I'll make 100% Boromir.  
  
Legolas: But then I want my own chapter too! Aragorn: And me! Zophi: Okay, maybe that's not such a great idea... Haldir: And what about me, I'm not in it at all!! Zophi: Ah...now THERE's an idea... *writer's block magically unblocks and she goes off to Write* ^_^ 


	5. Old Friends and New Ones

As has been said before, it's not mine...  
  
My dearest Loyal Reviewers; Captain-Emily, thanks again for your comments. Legolas will, by the end of this (wow, there's going to BE an end? Oh my gosh!! Not for a long while yet, though, by the way this is going...!) have regained some of his masculinity, dignity, and everything else. If anyone was wondering, I'm a dedicated Legoluster (hence the name Greenleaf-Cuarwen) myself, so why he gets mutilated character-wise is something of a mystery to me--  
  
*gets prodded, hard, with a certain someone's knitting-arrow* Yes, Haldir, I love you too. *Elvish clamour in background* And you, Elrond. YES, Glorfindel!! Now the lot of you, shut up and let me get back to writing commentaries on all the lovely reviews I've got, before Leafy realises what I've just said and kills me for infidelity. (Me, unfaithful? Never!).  
  
--where was I? Oh, yes, why Legolas gets character assassinated. I haven't got a clue...but rest assured, revenge will be his. He's not much cop at holidays, but home is HIS domain. (Or so he likes to think, at least).  
  
To answer your other queries: Aragorn ran away because they'd just been discussing homosexuality, and then Lego starts apparently taking his shirt off. Aragorn, who's an excellent Ranger and all-round great guy but not so good at Math, put two and two together and got six. And ran.  
  
As for the 'America-bashing', sincere apologies to anyone that may have offended; I have nothing against America (well, not much, but I won't go into that. America people are, as a rule, really nice; and I can say that from experience). I needed somewhere to be the 'West' and since they're now in England, I sort of thought of the nearest landmass to the west. And then Lego and Gimli needed an excuse to come home, so they decided they didn't like America much. I did try to convince them otherwise, but they were having none of it.  
  
Flyaway, I'm so glad you like it! ^_^ It's sort of supposed to be funny, but my sense of humour has a tendency to be kinda twisted so I'm pleased other people find it humorous too... Yes, poor old Lego does have a lot to put up with - a lot of people have noticed that... ^_^ Please find below 'what they get up to next'...heheh.  
  
Sakura Kuonji...here's some more. Hope you like! ^_^  
  
Theelfismine: I don't think this is what you had in mind...but our poor dear Elf does indeed meet SEVERAL females in this chapter. I'm sadistic, so sue me ^_^ Don't worry, he will get revenge!! (And yes, he is straight, unless I decided to put in some non-plot-affecting random slashy interludes, á la Bagenders, to which I am eternally indebted etc).  
  
Language and hobbity porn-obsession in the latter part of the chapter; ex- partner-beating in the former. Enjoy.  
  
By the way...Glorfindel lives (because he deserves to), Haldir lives (because I believe in The Books. And he, too, deserves to, bless him ^_^ I love Haldy!! ...and Glorfie too, for that matter =^_^=), and Boromir has relations. Honest. But halt, I give away the plot...and now I digress...oh, here, just read...here is 'chapter the fourth'...  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
4. Friday: Old Friends...and New Ones  
  
"BOROMIR!!!"  
  
The scream permeated aeons of time and space, getting within seconds to southern Bermuda where Boromir was not holidaying (he'd got enough of THAT particular pastime in the last day alone) but in fact checking up on his two-hundred-and-seventy-five-times-great-nephew Paul, who was, via a VERY convoluted and twisted route with a lot of blood diluting and downright weirdness (including one-hundred-and-thirty-two-times-great-niece Annie dating a supposed sorcerer, and great-nephews ninety-eight through 114, all named Louis, being the Kings of France for a short - by immortal standards - while), a direct descendant of little brother Faramir.  
  
*Now what've I done?* Boromir thought crossly, quitting his attempt to show himself to Paul (he'd always rather wanted to show himself to a relative. He'd only ever succeeded once - with Annie's paramour, and he'd given him some very good advice too. Of course, when he went and took it, THAT was when the locals started accusing him of sorcery. Boromir still cringed a little when he thought of that one) and snapping, with a sigh, back to Room 26, where Aragorn was standing, looking vaguely murderous. "You called, bwana?"  
  
"Shut up, deadboy. Yes, I did."  
  
"This is getting to be an uncomfortably regular occurrence. This is two mornings in a row you've summoned me from my ether to do your dirty work."  
  
"Oh, snap out of it," Aragorn said irritably. Boromir got the distinct feeling that something had gone wrong already this morning (and it was only...he frowned, working out the local time...eight-thirty A.M.?). "Just...stop it, okay?"  
  
"Umm...stop what?"  
  
"Stop being so damn obstreperous!"  
  
"Been eating dictionaries again, Estel?"  
  
"I've told you, don't call me that! And no, I haven't been consuming dictionaries or thesauri or anything else besides!"  
  
"'Consuming'...'thesauri'...the evidence mounts," Boromir said with a cheeky grin.  
  
Aragorn took a deep breath and worked hard repeating to himself *he's a ghost; hitting him will do no good whatsoever, he won't feel it, he's a ghost, hitting him will do no good whatsoever...* For all this was true, it didn't help much.  
  
"Hang on a moment," Boromir said after a moment's tetchy silence; "where's Lego?"  
  
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!!!" came a shout, in Quenya, from the en-suite.  
  
"He said, 'don't call me that'," Aragorn translated, since Boromir was not precisely fluent in Quenya, Sindarin or any other Elvish tongue. "I think us calling him Lego finally got to him."  
  
"Just a bit," came the murderous Quenya mutterings from behind the bathroom door.  
  
"Holidays are supposed to be a de-stressing exercise, Leg--uh, Leafy old pal," Aragorn said genially (Boromir was getting increasingly worried about these frighteningly short psychotic episodes the resident Ranger seemed to be having of late). "You're not meant to fret over them. How can you be so calm at home and trembling like a ...well, a leaf here?"  
  
"Him? Calm? At home?" Boromir said with a sharp laugh. "He's the one who panics every thirty seconds!"  
  
"We-ell..." Aragorn considered this. "Maybe not quite that often...maybe once a minute or so..."  
  
"Same difference!"  
  
*Aura of outer Elvishness and unflappable serenity!!* Legolas thought, eyes closed tight in concentration, in the bathroom. He didn't like where this conversation seemed to be leading.  
  
"Why'd you want me, anyway?" Boromir asked, floating up to the ceiling and stretching out full-length on thin air.  
  
Aragorn would have pouted, if that hadn't been a very immature and undignified thing to do. Instead he had to settle for sighing exaggeratedly and flopping down on his bed, craning upwards to look his dead friend (umm...co-Fellowshipper) in the eye. "Thought we - or at least you - could go meet some friends today."  
  
"Friends?" Boromir sounded distinctly nervous. "How d'you mean, friends? Other sharp-earses?" The slightly derogatory name for Legolas had somehow degenerated into meaning random Elves, and sharp-ears or point-ears was now the term used in public, so as to hopefully avoid anyone thinking the whole Company were loons. Between them (well, between Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli and Frodo) they spoke over four hundred languages, but the other three hobbits had resisted all attempts to teach them any second tongue and so they were stuck with the most-used language in the world, which almost any passer-by could understand. Legolas and to a lesser extent Aragorn were all for teaching everyone Elvish, which it was almost certain nobody could understand, but it was a highly complex language and one which did not entirely suit a rather brusque, vaguely Scottish accent (Pippin) or the mouth of a terminal giggler (Merry) or a Dwarf (Gimli. Legolas's liking for Dwarves did not extend so far as allowing them to be any 'good' at Elvish, though Aragorn thought Gimli's pronunciation was excellent, most of the time). Because of the collective inability to speak any common, foreign-to- most-sane-modern-people language, they had reverted to coming up with code- names, of sorts, such as 'sharp-ears' for Elves, 'flat-footed midgets' for Hobbits, and so on. Terms which could easily be misinterpreted by nebby passers-by. Does 'sharp-ears', for instance, mean someone who has pointed, sharp ears, or someone who hears everything? In the Fellowship's case, both - but most people would assume the latter only.  
  
"No, not other Elves," Aragorn said. *At least I hope not, I have enough on my plate with one at the moment, thank you VERY much.* "We're going to the Tower of London. You might meet up with some other deadbeats. Whoops-a- daisy, I mean deadboys."  
  
"Hmph." Boromir sounded somewhat affronted, and with pretty good reason, all things considered. "Well, if that's all you wanted, I WAS busy."  
  
"You have a life?" came a voice from the bathroom.  
  
Boromir two-fingered the en-suit door transparently. "No, but I do have a death, and it's a lot better than your life!"  
  
"Get lost, deadboy!"  
  
"Sharp-ears!"  
  
"Heartless!"  
  
"Herbal-hair!"  
  
"Soul des--oh, for the love of Ilúvatar, I'm not getting into this!"  
  
"Chicken!"  
  
"Get LOST, you DEADBEAT!!"  
  
"Ooh, I'm scared," Boromir said dryly, and vanished with a small pop.  
  
"Well bloody done, Lego," Aragorn said, and closed his eyes and tried to pretend everything was okay...everything was fine...Just for a moment, he remembered little Eldarion tugging on his tunic, and smiling down at his young son; and Arwen coming in with the teenage Estela by her side, glowing slightly in the darkness of the evening...tucking the children in to bed and having the rest of the night to themselves...*Oh, wake UP, Elfstone,* he chided himself wearily. *Arwen LEFT. You know, that might SUGGEST something about the relationship, or lack thereof?! And besides, you ended up hating her too, right? RIGHT??*  
  
"Still," he muttered aloud; "it doesn't even matter, on account of how I'm never going to see her again..."  
  
**  
  
The Fellowship, sans Legolas, were been braving the hotel restaurant again (Merry and Pippin, knowing when they were onto a good thing, had insisted on hotel cooked breakfasts once more...maybe twice, thrice, infinity more) when the Elf, safely curled up on his bed in Room 26, re-reading for the ten thousandth time an ancient and dog-eared tome entitled 'Men are from Melkor, Elves are from Venus' (Imladris Publishing, fifty groats, now out of print for over six million years; Legolas had the only known remaining copy, but since everyone else who'd been alive back then aside from the Fellowship was - or so he thought until he remembered something rather worrying mere seconds later - dead, this was hardly surprising) recalled something someone had said to him a long (by human standards) time ago.  
  
It had been back in the Sixties, when he'd been working for a law firm in Manchester, having lost the rest of the Fellowship for a decade or two (not deliberately, of course...). He'd been on a business trip to London and had met up with...yes...And they'd talked a while, and before he'd had to leave he'd been told, "If you're in the area in the next fifty years or so, look me up, won't you?" And he'd said yes, of course, as you do.  
  
It's a hard job to look someone up when all you have is a rather grainy forty-year-old snapshot and a long-changed 'mobile' phone number (as he recalled, it had been not so much a mobile as a brick), but Elves are a determined species and they tend to keep their promises.  
  
Ten minutes later, a determined-looking gentleman with over-long hair looped up and tucked under a black baseball cap darted through Reception and into the restaurant. Jayne, who was on Reception duty again, watched with interest as he held a short conversation with (apparently) thin air, then went to rouse the other seven members of the...Grey, wasn't it?...party.  
  
"Come on, people, let's go!"  
  
"Why're you so bloody bright and bouncy?" Gimli asked crossly. Morning was not his best time; and he'd never quite got used to the idea of 'cities' either - he still preferred underground, mountains, stone halls and so on, and was a dedicated mountaineer...or had been in the 1400s, when he'd escaped the others for a while.  
  
"We've got somewhere to go!" Legolas told them brightly. "Come on, move out already..."  
  
"Where?" Aragorn asked suspiciously.  
  
"Why, Aragorn, don't you trust me? We're sticking to your planned itinerary..." *mostly,* he thought; "and going to the Tower of London."  
  
"I don't trust the way you're smiling, Lego..."  
  
"I just don't trust you, period," Gimli said with a grunt.  
  
"Oh ye of little faith," Legolas said happily. "Come on, are we going already?"  
  
"I wan' some more mus'rooms!!"  
  
"An' me!"  
  
"Umm...if you're offering...?"  
  
"I'm not!" Aragorn put in quickly. He didn't really want to get going (not if Legolas was in one of his über-organised and far-too-happy moods, anyhow. Happy was okay and über-organised was usually great; it was only when the two phenomenon were seen together they generally spelled disaster) but they'd be there all day if he let the hobbits get any more breakfast...  
  
"Yes, come on, we're going in a minute," Legolas ordered. "One minute FLAT, okay?"  
  
Pippin, unfortunately, was already at the top-ups counter.  
  
"Hmm...okay...so possibly not..."  
  
**  
  
Merry and Pippin had found their ideal jobs. At least, so they thought.  
  
The beefeaters were not so enamoured with their pint-sized new 'friends'. Although when they'd taken the front-of-house type shifts they'd known that they might get stuck with annoying children, but they hadn't bargained on hobbits (or, as Fred put it in the morning coffee break, 'those damn kiddies with the size twenty-eight feet and appetites like horses'. Joe of the Royal Horse-Mounted National Guard was none too pleased with this comment, pointing out that horses are really very sensible eaters, thank you very much).  
  
"Ah always thought Ah suited red!"  
  
"An' with a name like 'beefeater', Pip...!!"  
  
"Well said, tha' 'obbit. A'right..." Pippin turned to the beefeater, taking on a very businesslike tone. "Where d'we sign up?"  
  
The poor beefeater took a deep breath and started to wish he'd joined that lot with the tall bearskin hats. They weren't ALLOWED to talk to visitors, lucky buggers.  
  
"I think you're a bit young yet, chaps," he said, trying hard for a smile.  
  
"Nah, we can manage. We're jus' small for our age," said Merry. How small (or tall, by Hobbit standards) and what age were things the beefeater didn't need to know, of course...  
  
The beefeater was in the middle of answering an incessant stream of hobbity questions, and thinking some very anti-hobbity thoughts (although he thought they were anti-kiddie thoughts, since he didn't know Merry and Pippin were hobbits), when he was saved by... well, saved, anyhow.  
  
"Come ON, would you, please?" Frodo said, grabbing Merry and Pippin by a sleeve each and dragging them away. "I'm so sorry if they've been a bother," he added to the beefeater.  
  
"Umm," was the guard's comment, as he tried hard to work out the logistics behind a very small person dragging two not-quite-as-small-people away with all the force and authority of any adult. It didn't work...did it? *Er...no...* he thought, shaking his head, and bent down, smiling, to shake the hand of a nice safe six-year-old girl with pigtails and a pink backpack. Tired and confused, he didn't even bother with the no-bags-in-the- tower rule...  
  
"Mush," Frodo ordered, poking his cousins in the back, hard. "Lego's getting tetchy. Anyone'd think we had an appointment to make."  
  
Little did he know...  
  
**  
  
Nobody paid any attention to the little group conversing on the Tower green. They seemed to be having a picnic, and apart from unusual dress in some quarters, accents you could break a brick on in others, and a general feeling of out-of-time weirdness, it was a perfectly normal scene.  
  
"Where are they already?" It was a woman speaking.  
  
"I don't know," a man replied; "I told him to meet us here--are you looking at me again?"  
  
"Dream on!!"  
  
"Nightmare on, you mean--"  
  
"Children, please!" A different man, whose voice radiated annoyed paternity. "We are civilised beings whose combined age totals more than that of this Earth, I think we can manage not to be too mean, can we not?"  
  
"Huh," the woman, sounding like a teenager who'd been remonstrated with, said.  
  
"Sir," was the other man's contribution, sounding superior but accepting of the rebuke.  
  
"Better. Do you mean to honestly tell me that they're still co-inhabiting as a Fellowship?"  
  
"So Legolas said, sir. I find it a little hard to believe, myself."  
  
"You're not the only one." There was a pause, and the speaker 'hmm'd. "Still...we shall find out soon, no doubt."  
  
"No doubt, sir," said another male voice, calm and organised. "Cucumber sandwich?"  
  
"Hmm, don't mind if I do. Diola lle."  
  
"Shh! Not here!"  
  
"Damn, I hate the mortal world."  
  
"No, you hate Men."  
  
"Also true. Still...ah, look!"  
  
"Ai!" said the woman, dark-haired and willowy, shielding her eyes with a hand as she studied the approaching party. "Ohmivalarit'sthem!!"  
  
"Ye-es..." the man who had been first to speak, blonde with autonomous eyebrows and the aforementioned brick-shattering accent, said slowly. "It's hardly going to be anyone else, now is it?"  
  
"Shut the hell up, Haldir, it's them, it's honestly them, oh my Valar, I don't believe it, I haven't seen them in--oh, gawd, HE's with them..."  
  
"Arwen, shut up before one or the other of us takes the initiative and injures you," Elladan suggested good-naturedly, speaking up for the first time. This earned him a dirty look from the owner of the voice which radiated annoyed paternity, a.k.a. his father, a.k.a. Elrond Half-Elven, Lord of Imladris. Well, until Imladris became part of Asia, that was. (The Japanese had liked the idea of fine gardens and delicate pagodas a.k.a outdoor council chambers; and built on the idea of gorgeous landscaping to produce their beautiful Oriental ornamental gardens).  
  
Over the green, a similar scenario was happening in the Fellowship, only with more swearing and, in parts, a lot louder. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?!" Aragorn wanted to know. Loudly.  
  
"Shush, no need to shout, I'm an Elf after all," Legolas told him good- naturedly, starting to wonder what he HAD been thinking. "Er...I thought it might be nice to meet up again..."  
  
"NICE? NICE?? YOU SMEG-FOR-BRAINS--" (after the Girl In Train Station Incident, Merry and Pippin had taken to watching Red Dwarf on the hotel TVs, which of course had Sky, as a sort of tribute to their latest unnamed object of desire, and their use of the Worst Word In The RD Canon had rubbed off on Aragorn, who already knew more Worst Words than most truckies and builders combined, in fifty-six languages including Klingon) "--DO YOU HAVE DEATH WISH OR SOMETHING?"  
  
"Being immortal, I don't see how I could--oh...umm...no?"  
  
"Pity, that, because I'm DAMN WELL GOING TO SEE THAT IT GETS GRANTED!!"  
  
"Calm down, Estel," Gandalf, ever the voice of reason, said soothingly, laying a companionable hand on Aragorn's shoulder. "It won't be so bad..."  
  
"I am NOT going over there. I don't care WHO's there, I'm NOT."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"SHE's with them!!"  
  
"Ah. Umm."  
  
*Oops,* Legolas thought quietly. *Maybe I shouldn't've said 'bring all the old gang'. Maybe 'part of the old gang' would have sufficed. Or 'all the guys'. Or 'everyone but Arwen'. Or 'come alone...'*  
  
Gandalf's lecture (something along the lines of "I Will Do Painful And Magical Things To You If You Dare a) Run Away b) Insult Arwen c) Argue Back With Me") was cut short by two or three of the company on the grass waving. "Going to stand there all day?" the cut-glass tones of a certain someone asked genially.  
  
"Ohshitohshitohshitohshit," Aragorn muttered. "Please tell me that isn't Haldir."  
  
Gimli, after confirmation from Legolas as to this fact, joined in the ohshit chorus. Gandalf whacked them both in the backside with the picnic cooler, which he had elected to carry for today. "Move, you both," he ordered. "Now."  
  
When Gandalf said 'now' in That Tone Of Voice, you didn't argue unless you were either Boromir, or had a death wish of your own. Reluctantly, Aragorn and Gimli shuffled forward, following the rest of the Fellowship who'd long since departed towards the little party on the grass (Merry and Pippin thought their food looked better than the offerings in the Fellowship's picnic cooler). Boromir floated somewhere on the sidelines, looking bored.  
  
*Bloody marvellous, an Elf reunion. They needn't think I'm sticking around for THIS.*  
  
He vanished with a pop, as per usual.  
  
**  
  
"So, you came at last, eh?"  
  
"No need to get shirty, Elrohir. I did have eight others to try and herd in the right direction," Legolas said defensively, in Quenya.  
  
The twins, Elrohir and his brother Elladan, both laughed (identically, as they did everything else). "Haldir was going practically off it," Elrohir imparted confidentially.  
  
"Really?" Legolas tried hard to imagine Haldir going off anything, but failed. "Somehow I can't quite see that..."  
  
"No, it does have to be seen to be believed," Elladan admitted. "You should have heard Arwen and he; any more and they would have been at daggers drawn!"  
  
"Seriously?"  
  
"No need to sound like the neighbourhood busybody," Elrohir laughed. "Living with mortals must do something to one's integrity!"  
  
"I'm sure you don't know anything about it," Arwen put in pointedly. The twins shot sidelong glances at one another, and at Legolas.  
  
"She's still really sore about losing Aragorn," Elladan said.  
  
"Says it was all his fault--"  
  
"Well?" his sister said imperiously. "It WAS all his fault!"  
  
"Was not!" Aragorn said in annoyance, having understood this whole Elvish conversation (only he and Gandalf did, of the Fellowship. Frodo knew a bit of Sindarin, but since this was in Quenya he was lost off) and decided to chip in. "It was her, she moved on!"  
  
"No, you did," Arwen said hotly.  
  
"Only after you kicked me out!"  
  
"The White Tower was no place for floozies!"  
  
"Meaning what?"  
  
"You think I didn't notice how you looked at Lirimaelin?!"  
  
"Uh, who? And can I just point out that is the most Mary-Sueish name I've ever heard outside of online fan-fiction domains. Please don't tell me we honestly had a serving-girl called that."  
  
"We did. You did, at least. You ba--"  
  
"My lady, please!" Haldir cut in smoothly. "This is neither the time nor the place for such conversation, and if you want to know, my lord, Lirimaelin was the younger daughter of one of your human generals and an Elven maiden. She was called 'lovely one' by her father, who spoke little Elvish, and when her mother translated that into Elvish he thought it was so nice he stuck a 'lin' on the end and named her. When she was sixteen by human count, she--"  
  
"I don't need her bloody life story," Aragorn spat; "and how d'you know it, anyway?"  
  
"Word gets around...and then I did some checking up."  
  
"Word was wrong, okay? You get me? WRONG. I never had anything with ANY of the serving girls, okay, Arwen? As for you, I'm not even going to GO there!"  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?!"  
  
"Only that YOU were the one who--"  
  
Legolas tuned out, not wanting to hear the insults that followed. Obviously, there was no way those two were ever going to patch up their differences. Leaving Haldir to referee the (thankfully quite quiet) shouting match, he glanced around for the Hobbits...  
  
"Get out of that picnic basket!" he ordered, spotting them raiding it for lembas.  
  
"Wha'--?"  
  
"I said," he repeated, picking each of them up by the collars and depositing them some distance away, "keep OUT of the picnic basket!"  
  
Even though it was a sunny day, the air around him got a little brighter suddenly. Most people cast shadows when they approach, but not Galadriel. She, being as she was the Lady OF Light, unsurprisingly CAST light. "They are more than welcome, should they wish, to eat their fill," she offered kindly. "Have you ever tried counselling, Legolas?" she added in an undertone.  
  
He bridled. "I do not need--!!"  
  
"There are those who would beg to differ," Haldir, the world's best at multi-tasking, interjected from where he was keeping Arwen and Aragorn calm and quiet and simultaneously holding intelligent conversation with Gandalf while also repointing a split arrow.  
  
"Since when were you involved in this conversation?" Legolas asked pointedly, feeling the beginnings of a stress headache coming on. "Oww..."  
  
"I'm not going to say quit whining," Elrond put in from his cross-legged lotus position not far away, "because I'm not going to let you start. Here." He snapped his fingers and Legolas felt the tension behind his temples release.  
  
"Whoa...er, thanks, sir. I knew you were a healer but where'd you learn that?!"  
  
"The Sci-Fi channel," Arwen said, not quitting her staring contest with Aragorn. "Far too much Star Trek: The Next Generation."  
  
"Huh? Frodo!! What's he on about?"  
  
Frodo, the only one in the group who would actually admit to liking Star Trek, thought for a minute. "Err...I'm thinking episode one, Encounter At Farpoint, in which there was this...thing...Q...who could do, er, stuff by snapping his fingers...umm..."  
  
"That's the one," Arwen said, adding to Aragorn: "HAH! YOU BLINKED!!"  
  
"Ri-ight," Legolas said slowly. *I'm starting to think this was NOT a good idea...*  
  
"I do not watch too much Star Trek," Elrond said sorely, trying hard not to do a one-eyebrow-raised-Spock-thing. "Caring for a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land is enough to keep anyone occupied without watching too much Star Trek!"  
  
This information was too much for Legolas. "A hundred and...nngh!!"  
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"You're seriously telling me you have a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land? Where?"  
  
"In the Yorkshire Dales. It's a beautiful area. And since I put the lake in the north-east corner of the property the heron population of the Dales has increased by almost twenty-nine percent. And--"  
  
"You have a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of land in the Yorkshire Dales? Private residence?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Uh, you can injure me if you want, my lord, but - I'm starting to hate you!"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because you've got a hundred and ninety-three and a quarter bloody acres of private residence land all to yourself, and I get to share a four- bedroom council semi in Birmingham with THIS lot!"  
  
"Oh. Well, do feel free to come and visit, if you're ever in the area."  
  
Legolas closed his eyes for a moment and pictured the scene. One hundred and ninety-three and a quarter acres of beautiful, peaceful land...fields, gardens, admittedly a lake or two but they were probably avoidable...no annoying Fellowship, no cramped semi, no smoky atmosphere of London or Birmingham...only acres and acres of grass and sky and maybe, if he was really lucky, a beautiful big old-country house, maybe vaguely reminiscent of the Last Homely House...birds, flowers, trees...probably a forest or two, there was bound to be a forest somewhere in that much land...He could see it now. Perfect. "That would be--"  
  
"Bloody awful!"  
  
"Excuse me?! That wallpaper was absolutely gorgeous!"  
  
*Oh, Valar,* Legolas swore to himself. Aragorn and Arwen had moved on from discussing who had been doing what with whom and were now arguing over how nice - or bloody awful, perhaps - the dining room wallpaper had been in their twenty-second house.  
  
"--wonderful," he finished to Elrond, and went over to help Haldir separate the unhappy couple.  
  
**  
  
"It must be thousands and thousands of years now," Boromir said thoughtfully, "and I still actually miss the sensation of--"  
  
"I know, I know," the (ex)-Honourable Lady Madeline Samson, accused witch, burned at the stake in 1622, said, waving her hands transparently, but expressively. "So do I; it's so annoying that we can't any more, don't you think?"  
  
"Couldn't agree more," Thomas Postlethwaite, killed for treason in 1294 (acquitted, posthumously but correctly, in 1329), added, nodding slowly.  
  
"Absolutely. So, how long've you been here?"  
  
"Umm...maybe two or three hundred years? I forget the exact date I arrived...I know I was burned on the fourteenth of September 1622, though. Bastards," she added snippily, shaking her singed skirt. "Everything I change into always ends up singed. Talk about an eternal curse."  
  
"Can't you just sort of...un-singe it?" Boromir asked, blinking.  
  
"Nope. Maybe if I HAD been a witch, I could. But since I'm not, I can't. Huh."  
  
"That's a bit unfair," Boromir noted accurately, being as he was something of an expert on unfairness (although had Faramir been there, he would've said he was MORE of an expert, having had to live with his father's eternal disapproval just for being the youngest. Since he wasn't, in fact, around, Boromir quickly derailed this train of thought and so should we).  
  
"Indeed," Madeline said, sniffing affectedly. "At least I never get colds any more."  
  
"I hate to point this out, m'lady," Thomas told her, "but we're ghosts. We don't get colds anyhow."  
  
"There is that," Madeline noted, sounding pretty crushed. Boromir patted her semi-transparent arm comfortingly. Madeline smiled at him. "So, um, Boromir... What brings you to my neck of the woods?"  
  
"Ow," Thomas commented. He'd been beheaded, so the word 'neck' was obviously something of a touchy subject for him.  
  
"Sorry," Madeline said with an apologetic shrug. "Boromir...?"  
  
"A number 24 bus," Boromir said, which raised (appropriately) the ghost of a smile from the other two. "The cause of my journey, however, is the troop of travelling hooligans I seem to be bound to for all eternity, unfortunately."  
  
"Ooh, a curse, how interesting!" Madeline said enthusiastically. "Was there a real witch involved?"  
  
"Only if you count Galadriel of the Golden Woods," Boromir said, meaning it sincerely. Thomas and Madeline blinked at him. "Elf woman," he said by way of explanation. "Went green when she got mad. Quite pretty until then. Liked reading people's minds, too, which was kind of annoying."  
  
"You believe in Elves? How...sweet," Madeline said, sounding unconvinced.  
  
"What do you mean, believe? I was in a Fellowship with one! And a king and four random hobbits, to boot. Oh, and a small hairy ferret that might have been a Dwarf."  
  
Thomas and Madeline stopped blinking at him and blinked at each other. "I would've been burned a lot sooner if I'd started talking about elfs and things," Madeline noted.  
  
Thomas nodded sincerely. "I was brought up t'believe the Little People should never be mentioned aloud."  
  
"They're not little," Boromir clarified. "Most of 'em are taller than you and I. Well, except Hobbits. It's just an Elf thing. And did you say 'elfs', Madeline? Just it's actually Elves..."  
  
"Ye-es..." Madeline said slowly. "Excuse me a moment. I have, um, an appointment to make."  
  
"Me too," Thomas said, following Madeline through the walls while making noises about "was almost late for my own funeral, got to improve my timekeeping," and "hope I'm not going to be senile when I've been dead a few hundred thousand years."  
  
Boromir shrugged. "Oh well. And to think we started out talking about the sensation of eating things!"  
  
**  
  
"Do you mean to seriously tell me you live with the whole Fellowship?"  
  
"I brought them, didn't I? Arwen, stop clawing at me. I am not Aragorn, nor am I going to let you get near him, no matter how much you wriggle."  
  
"Haldir, please, I do not have to be put in a stranglehold. I am mature and responsible and quite capable of not beating my ex-wife up if you let me go. Besides, you're hurting."  
  
"Sorry," Haldir said, not quite sounding entirely sincere, and released Aragorn, who rubbed his neck affectedly and frowned at the march-warden. "Legolas...the whole group? My Valar...I feel sorry for you. Even the Dwarf?" There were about twenty extra 'a's in Dwaaaaarf and it didn't sound too genial and accepting, either.  
  
"Yes, Haldir, even the Dwarf. Arwen, please!"  
  
"Lemme go then!"  
  
"No. I am going to keep you held firmly until you promise not to kill Aragorn when I let you go."  
  
"I promise already! Now get OFF!"  
  
"Promise...?"  
  
"On my honour. Off!"  
  
"Mmhmm...?"  
  
*Oh Eru,* Aragorn thought; *he's gone into parental mode...maternal mode, to boot. Are we ever in trouble now...*  
  
"On my immortal life and soul I promise not to kill my bas--my ex-husband if you'll only let me GO!"  
  
"What's the magic word?"  
  
Arwen blinked. "I always knew you were screwy, but that takes the biscuit. Ow, all right, all right! 'Please'?!"  
  
"With pleasure." Legolas stopped sitting on Arwen's back and she got up, looking more than a bit ruffled clothes-wise and none to pleased expression- wise. A couple of old ladies walked past and tut-tutted, causing Elladan and Elrohir to snicker.  
  
"You don't know the half of it!" they said softly, in perfect unison. The poor old women glanced round and tutted some more, then stalked off as fast as people leaning heavily on walking-sticks generally can.  
  
"Haldir, have you any idea how dead you are when we get a moment alone?" Aragorn asked pleasantly.  
  
"Yes, thank you," the march-warden replied, equally pleasantly, "not at all, thanks all the same."  
  
"Don't count on it."  
  
*Oh, great,* Frodo thought worriedly, from his vantage point on top of the picnic hamper (he was sitting there, along with Sam, in the hope their combined weight would stop Merry and Pippin getting in at the last of the pork pies). *He's gone homicidal again. Eru help us all.*  
  
/You don't need Eru/, said a voice that wasn't his - unless his had suddenly gone feminine, flowery and slightly echoey without his knowledge, which seemed doubtful even in his fragile mental state - inside his head. /You just need me/.  
  
*I could be wrong,* Frodo thought nervously, because he didn't want to speak aloud and be thought even madder by the others, *but are you Galadriel?*  
  
/Yep/, said the voice, sounding altogether too pleased with itself. /Don't worry, Frodo, I'll keep them under control/.  
  
*Thank you. Um, my lady. I think. Don't hurt them, will you? Aragorn's the only one who knows the bus routes except Legolas and I think Lego'll be too stressed out to want to worry about buses at the end of this...*  
  
/Don't worry/, Galadriel told him, and Frodo looked at her in time to see her smile at him briefly. /I've got it all under control/.  
  
"Biscuit, Arwen?" Aragorn offered pleasantly, blinked a bit, tried to fight what Galadriel was making him think he was thinking, failed miserably and gave up.  
  
"Why, thank you," Arwen said sweetly, accepting a proffered biccie after briefly clasping her hands for a moment, wondering why she was being so bloody nice, realising it was Galadriel, remembering that you NEVER argue with Galadriel, and giving up too.  
  
Nobody except Elrond noticed Celeborn's smirk. But then, Elrond was privy to what he was smirking about, and thought it rather humorous himself. Except for Arwen being involved, of course, but one had to forgive one's in- laws some things. Especially when they were Celeborn of Lórien and Galadriel, Lady of Light (and of Terrible Migraines).  
  
**  
  
"Umm, this may have escaped people's notice, but they're within half an hour of closing time here..."  
  
Glorfindel, sane as ever, was the one who made the dread comment. Elrond and Celeborn were locked in a staring match, though mentally shouting at each other (mostly along the lines of "what the HELL does your wife think she's doing to my DAUGHTER?!" and "if you'd brought her up less bitchy, we wouldn't be IN this situation!", as Glorfindel had found out quite by accident when he'd tried to ask a perfectly innocent question without the others knowing) and both looking quite fierce. Galadriel was still innocently keeping tabs on Aragorn and Arwen, who were being too nice to be true (Aragorn being nice for more than a minute or so was starting to scare Merry and Pippin a bit) although thankfully had retained enough of themselves to not actually be falling in love again or anything wet like that. Haldir and Legolas were involved in an animated debate on how warfare had gone downhill so since the fourteenth-century, or possibly had only gotten better since the invention of gunpowder ("I was THERE for the invention of gunpowder! Beat that, princey!" "Fine - I was there for the invention of the sub-machine gun. Not that I actually was bothered, or anything, but I was there." "Really?" "Yes, march-warden, really. Unfortunately." "In the room?" "Yep." "Seriously?" "No kidding." "No? Really? Oh m--I mean, how...interesting for you. You'll have to tell me about it sometime. When I have a window in my calendar, of course." *Think bored, bored, bored, been there, done that, don't care...* "Of course") much to the amusement of the Hobbits, who couldn't follow the words - the discussion being held in Quenya, which not even Frodo knew a lot of - but thought the content must be hugely exciting judging by the various gesticulations (both parties, but mostly Legolas) and obviously fake expressions of disinterest (both parties, but mostly Haldir) going on. Merry and Pippin were having the time of their lives thinking of possible things they were saying, mostly along the lines of "Kiss me, Legolas!" and "Yes, I really DO love you, Haldir!", until Sam prodded them both hard in the ribs and they shut up. They knew an angry gardener when they saw one.  
  
The next sensible comment came from the most unlikely quarter possible. Frodo. "Has anyone seen Boromir?"  
  
The entire group turned to blink at him. "Um, would you care?" Sam asked gently. "I mean, sir, you and he--?"  
  
"No, not really, but it's getting dark and I thought he might want to know we're leaving."  
  
"You are?" Elladan and Elrohir chorused, behind in current events as usual.  
  
"Mister Glorfindel just told us we've basically got to be out in half an hour or so, so we'd better be moving, hadn't we?"  
  
"How many times, Frodo? I saved your life--"  
  
"NO, I DID!"  
  
"Shut up, Arwen. Frodo, I saved your life, or rather Asfaloth did, so I think it's probably all right for you to drop the 'mister', yes?"  
  
"Yes, sir, mi--um, Glorfindel, sir."  
  
"Since when did you save Frodo's life?" Legolas wanted to know innocently.  
  
"I did in the movie."  
  
"What movie?"  
  
"You haven't seen it? Oh my VALAR! I'll have to lend you the tape!"  
  
"Yeah, good idea," Pippin, who'd been meaning to bring this up for some time now, piped up. "Ca' we see i', Lego, please?"  
  
Hearing Pippin say 'please' knocked Legolas so off-balance that he said 'yes, of course' without even thinking.  
  
"Would you like the animated one, too?" Glorfindel asked sarcastically. "You saved his bleeding life in the animated one, Legolas. No offence - but you?! Does nobody care that it was ME who rode out and lent my horse to the cause of saving his life? Not you, not Arwen, not anybody, ME! And the real hero of the hour was Asfaloth!! Who Arwen horse-rustled in the movie!"  
  
"Don't blame me!" Arwen said crossly. "I always liked that soppy old nag of yours anyhow, heaven only knows why--"  
  
"ASFALOTH WAS NOT A SOPPY OLD NAG!!"  
  
"Shut up," Elrond said genially, "please, before people start to notice us. We are trying for inconspicuous here."  
  
This, coming from a millennia-old Elf lord with ebony hair half-way down his back, apparently wearing a sort of silk dressing gown over - were they jeans, Legolas wondered? - and a smart-casual shirt, was so pointless and hypocritical that the entire rest of the group, with the sole exception of Glorfindel, burst out laughing. Glorfindel glanced at his own overlong tresses worriedly and considered a haircut. Of course, so far as he knew none of the old gang had had their hair cut shorter than a foot or so beneath their shoulder-blades, but maybe he and Elrond could start a new fashion among the 'inconspicuous' Elven population of the world...  
  
"Oh good, you haven't killed each other yet."  
  
"Boromir!" Aragorn said in an unusual show of gratitude for his fellow (if dead) man. "Thank Eru you're here."  
  
"Uh, are you feeling okay?"  
  
"Fine, fine. Galadriel, please, enough is enough. I won't kill her, I promise."  
  
Boromir blinked at Legolas, who was usually pretty sane (all things considered), hoping for an explanation. None was forthcoming, as the debate about warfare had now degenerated into a discussion about which was better: living forever in the same mansion as Galadriel, where at least there were hundreds of rooms to escape to but your mind was in constant danger of being invaded; or living forever in the same nasty little four-bedroom semi as the Fellowship of the Ring, where there was nowhere to go for privacy but at least your mind was your own.  
  
A welcome distraction floated past in a singed red dress. "Boromir! I thought you'd--! I was just going for a little jaunt - I mean haunt..."  
  
"Madeline? Um, Lady Madeline?"  
  
"It's been half an hour, you great clod, not innumerable centuries. Of course it's me. SWEET MOTHER OF GOD, IS THAT AN ELF?!"  
  
"Yes," said Legolas, Haldir, Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, Glorfindel, Elladan, and Elrohir, all in the same testy voice.  
  
"Actually, it's eight of us," Haldir added. "And you are...?"  
  
"The Honourable Lady Madeline Samson," Boromir filled in almost proudly. "She and I, ah, met earlier..."  
  
"When you went off an' left us," Pippin said.  
  
"Frodo missed you," Merry sing-songed.  
  
"Yes, well, that's as maybe," Boromir said, going a transparent shade of pink. "Um, Lady Madeline--"  
  
"Madeline, please, I was ex-honourable'd hundreds of years ago and even before I was, I couldn't stand all the stuffiness and formality of being a Right Honourable Lady etc."  
  
"All right. Madeline and I--"  
  
"Fancy the non-existent pants off each other," Merry interjected cheekily. Boromir frowned at him.  
  
"Met in the Tower, actually, Brandybuck. Where I'd bet my soul you uncultured louts haven't set foot yet, am I right?"  
  
Legolas and Haldir, who liked to consider themselves the cultured members of their respective groups, frowned peevishly. "Well, actually...um, no."  
  
"You haven't missed much, just some pretty jewels and a load of sweaty tourists," Madeline reassured them. "Are you REALLY elfs?"  
  
"No, we're Elves--" Elladan told her.  
  
"--capitalised--" Elrohir added.  
  
"--with a 'v' in the middle," they chorused.  
  
Madeline blinked. "You two are definitely twins."  
  
"Is it obvious?" Elrohir asked, deadpan. Elrond tapped him upside the head, smartly. "Ow! Dad!"  
  
"No need for sarcasm," Elrond told him austerely.  
  
"I do apologise for this lot of living imbeciles," Boromir said to Madeline.  
  
"Don't worry," she smiled back; "my flesh-family are a lot of complete, what's the word, twats. And you're not even related to this lot, so you're doing better than me."  
  
"Well, maybe. My own family are a pretty decent lot, though completely unresponsive to any kind of spectral advances by moi..."  
  
"Uh, people - um, ghosts," Aragorn said, back to tense and tetchy as always ('thank Eru' was the first thought in Merry and Pippin's minds); "I hate to break up the discussion, but we're leaving now, so if you want to follow, fine; if not, see you later." Experiencing a sudden throwback to gallantry, he picked up Galadriel's none-too-light picnic hamper and strode off out of the courtyard, in pursuit of most of the Elves and Gandalf (who had had pretty much the time of his life keeping out of all of the arguments going on and having a private laugh at the idiocy of some people), and quickly followed by the Hobbits, Gimli, and Galadriel.  
  
Madeline turned to look at Boromir. "Are you, um, curse-bound to follow them or anything?"  
  
"Not that I know of," Boromir told her with no small feeling of gratitude about the fact.  
  
"Just, um, if you need someone to show you around London, I'm free for the next few hours, and if you're not cursed to follow them..."  
  
"We could float around a bit, see the sights, rejoin our respective groups some time tomorrow...or..."  
  
"...or whenever. We've both got forever, now."  
  
"And so have my lot. Worst luck on the rest of the world."  
  
"You could tell me some more about elf--Elves. And Gondor. And all those other fairy-tale places I didn't believe in when you told me the first time."  
  
"I'd be glad to. Are you non-corporeal?"  
  
"I think so. Are you?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
If two corporeal beings can touch one another, and a corporeal and a non- corporeal cannot, it follows that two non-corporeals must be able to. It was by following this unshakable logic that Boromir ended up with one arm around Madeline's shoulders as they wandered, a foot above the ground, through the west wall of the Tower yard and out into London.  
  
**  
  
Night fell on London, insofar as it can on a city which sleeps about as much as New York with a migraine. Sleep, however, did not visit room 26 in the King's Cross Hotel. Or rather, Aragorn evaded it, tossing and turning and moaning, "Why, Lego, why?"  
  
"Why what, Estel?" Legolas asked irritably. He'd been trying to read, using his Elven Glow (which Aragorn always thought should have a copyright symbol after it) as a light to see by, but wasn't getting very far with it on account of being moaned at every few seconds.  
  
The term 'Estel', Aragorn's much-despised Elf name, was quite simply revenge. Legolas had worked out that if there was a name he disliked, the same must be true for others. Estel, he knew from eavesdropping conversations between Aragorn and Boromir, was a likely candidate for the Ranger's least-liked moniker.  
  
"Why did you inflict that on me? My head is killing me. And my heart isn't in great shape either. And don't call me Estel!"  
  
"Don't call me Lego, then. Is it a crime to want to see some old friends again?"  
  
"Well done for bringing all of Immortals Anonymous along," Aragorn said sarcastically into the darkness. "And thanks a bloody million for inviting Arwen. Bitch."  
  
"I thought you still liked her, a bit?"  
  
Aragorn started. "No way! I mean, sure, she's pretty enough, in a bitchy kind of non-attractive way, but she's a total--"  
  
"All right, all right, I'll believe you. I just thought I heard you muttering things about putting Eldarion to bed and having the night to yourselves earlier today, is all."  
  
"Did I say all that aloud? SHIT!!"  
  
"Yes, you did. Would you please go to sleep now, I want to get some peace to read."  
  
"Shut up. Where's Boromir?"  
  
"Anxious about him, are we?"  
  
"Sod anxious. I just like knowing where he is, that's all. He stayed at the Tower with that Madeline, which is highly suspicious if you ask me."  
  
"Suspicious? How?"  
  
"It's true what they say. Elves don't have any sex drive. Except Elladan and Elrohir, and possibly Glorfindel. Work it out already, Legs!"  
  
"That," Legolas said affectedly, "is worse than Lego. And what do you mean, Elladan and Elrohir and Glorfindel have a sex drive? They never told me that!"  
  
"You wouldn't've wanted to know, unless you're a lot less innocent than you look," Aragorn muttered through a yawn. "Oh, and Lego...if you DARE wake me up before ten a.m. tomorrow you are one DEAD Elf, immortality or no. All right?"  
  
"Whatever you say, Estel. Um, was that last-but-one comment implying I AM innocent or I'm NOT...please?"  
  
The only answer was a soft snore, so Legolas got back to his book, albeit with wrinkled brow and somewhat puzzled expression.  
  
**  
  
"It must be thousands and thousands of years now," Boromir said thoughtfully, not for the first time, "and I still actually miss the sensation of--"  
  
"I know," the (ex)-Honourable Lady Madeline Samson, accused witch, burned at the stake in 1622, said, cutting him off with a finger to his lips. "But there are two of us in the same boat now, two lost souls who miss various sensations terribly, not least of which being the ability to actually eat as such..."  
  
"And both more than a bit peckish."  
  
"We're not talking about food any more, though, are we?"  
  
"No, Lady Madeline Samson, we're not."  
  
"I'm so glad."  
  
Fingers of sunlight were making their way meekly over the skyscraper- peppered horizon, battling for supremacy with the bright lights of London. It would have been nice to say that two silhouettes merged into one as they kissed, but since ghosts don't have shadows or silhouettes, it would have also been inaccurate. And besides, they never quite got to kiss.  
  
"BOROMIIIIIIIIR!"  
  
"Why does Estel always wake up and want something at the most inopportune time possible?" Boromir wondered irritably.  
  
In fact, 'Estel' had just been woken up by a rampaging Hobbit ("Elf prom'sed us anotha hotel breakfas' if we woke you u' prop'ly! Umm...shit...Ah was'nae supposed tae say tha' par'...") and was quite frankly shrieking random names in the hope he might hit upon the one he wanted (i.e. "LEGOLAAAAAAAAAS!") some time soon. Boromir, of course, didn't know this. He just knew he'd been rudely interrupted by a Ranger he was going to have to torture later.  
  
"Most unpleasant," Madeline agreed. "Umm...you did say you're NOT curse- bound to them..."  
  
"There is that. He's probably ignorable. Arrogant sod, he can damn well wait for me for a while. My captain my king my arse. Where were we?"  
  
Madeline was quick to remind him.  
  
And now we fade to black, before the rating has to go up a little.  
  
**  
  
"I did NOT promise you a hotel breakfast for waking Aragorn up! I didn't promise you ANYTHING on account of how I didn't ASK you to wake Aragorn up!"  
  
"We still wan' oor hotel breakfas' though!"  
  
"Yeah," Merry filled in. "Job well done, that was, even if we hadn't been asked to do it. Least not by you..."  
  
"Oh, all right. Just don't eat them out of mushrooms again. Please. Whaddyamean, not by me?"  
  
"Nuffin'," the hobbit pair chorused innocently, trying hard not to think about Arwen's little...comment, which had been along the lines of 'you torture Aragorn's immortal soul for me, and I'll see to a very nice pension, paid in mushrooms and possibly occasional porn, for you two.' (The immediate reaction had been "Ooh, mushrooms ...ooh, porn...ooh--YOU?!" to which Arwen had quickly replied, no, a lifetime subscription to Playhobbit, which was actually still being published in some pygmie areas and which she could easily get a hold of if they should like...? This had sounded like a great deal to Merry and Pippin, who spent a lot of their time torturing Aragorn's immortal soul anyhow. Doing it for payment made the whole business just a tad bit sweeter...)  
  
"Hmm."  
  
This, thought Legolas as the pair raced off down the corridor, required some investigating.  
  
Right after Aragorn finished beating the crap out of him for letting Merry and Pippin into room 26 before ten a.m. Letting Merry and Pippin in before 10a.m. definitely came under the heading of 'waking me up'. Unfortunately for him...  
  
"LEGOLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!"  
  
Yep, very unfortunately.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Addendum: Chapter 5 is in the works...sorry for the long delay, I really hope you think it was worth it ^_^ ...Reviews, comments, constructive criticisms all welcome! And thanks a million to my loyal reviewers =^_^=  
  
By the way - if anyone happens to know London well enough, or even not well at all, I would welcome suggestions for things they can do. I've only been there for holidays myself, though I think I know it fairly well... Still, if there's anything you want to see, please tell me and I'll see what I can do...  
  
~~Zophi xx 


End file.
